I’m a fan of performance standards, quality control, continuous improvement – all those things that can measure risk reduction.

(And why zero tolerances sorta suck.)

But keep it real.

“FSIS estimates that approximately 5,000 illnesses will be prevented each year under the new Campylobacter standards, and approximately 20,000 illnesses will be prevented under the revised Salmonella standards each year.”

Standards good, extrapolations based on … who knows what, bad.

Judge for yourselves. The press release is below. Full details have been published in the federal register and are available at
http://www.fsis.usda.gov/OPPDE/rdad/FRPubs/2009-0029.pdf

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) today announced implementation of revised and new performance standards aimed at reducing the prevalence of Salmonella and Campylobacter in young chickens and turkeys. The improved standards will become effective in July 2011. With the new standards, FSIS is encouraging establishments slaughtering chicken and turkey to make continued reductions in the occurrence of pathogens – namely Salmonella and Campylobacter – in the products they produce.

After two years of enforcing the new standards, FSIS estimates that approximately 5,000 illnesses will be prevented each year under the new Campylobacter standards, and approximately 20,000 illnesses will be prevented under the revised Salmonella standards each year.

"These improved standards are a stronger buffer between foodborne illnesses and our consumers, especially our most vulnerable consumers – children, the elderly and those with weakened immune systems," said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. "There is no more important mission at USDA than ensuring the safety of our food, and we are working every day to lower the danger of foodborne illness. The new standards announced today mark an important step in our efforts to protect consumers by further reducing the incidence of Salmonella and opening a new front in the fight against Campylobacter."

FSIS developed stricter performance standards using recently completed nationwide studies that measure the baseline prevalence of Salmonella and Campylobacter in young chickens and turkeys prepared for market. The studies indicated that, despite improvements, there was still a risk of consumers being exposed to these pathogens through poultry.

"While the industry has made significant strides in recent years, far too many Americans continue to fall victim to these foodborne illnesses," said Under Secretary for Food Safety Dr. Elisabeth Hagen. "These improved standards will drive the industry to do better. They are tough but achievable. And when fully implemented, they will prevent tens of thousands of Americans from getting sick."

President Obama's Food Safety Working Group (FSWG) developed three core principles to help guide food safety in the United States: prioritizing prevention, strengthening surveillance and enforcement, and improving response and recovery. In its overall mission to ensure a safe food supply for the public, and in response to the FSWG, FSIS developed the stricter performance standards to cut the Salmonella risk in poultry products.

In 1969, the Swann report recommended strict oversight and restrictions on the use of antibiotics used in human medicine as growth promoters in agriculture. That was in the U.K., and 31 years later, the debate about the use of antimicrobials in agriculture continues.

The USA Today today and the N.Y. Times on Friday both waded into the issue in advance of House hearing on the issue on Wednesday.

USA Today said in an editorial that,

"high-volume use of antibiotics in animals is a dangerous avenue for the evolution of drug-resistant bacteria that can eventually spread to humans. But, in a classic case of the public interest taking a back seat to private commercial interests, the farm lobby has for decades successfully fought restrictions on animal use of antibiotics. Now federal regulators and some members of Congress are making a worthy new push to rein in hazardous practices.

“The Food and Drug Administration is sufficiently concerned that it issued a detailed, 19-page "draft guidance" last month that calls on the agriculture industry to voluntarily end the "injudicious" use of drugs to help animals grow, which it said "poses a qualitatively higher risk to public health" than using the drugs selectively to cure or prevent disease.”

The FDA says 30 years of studies point unmistakably to a hazard from overuse of antibiotics in animals.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says humans could pick up drug-resistant bugs through contact with animals or by eating contaminated food; it cites the example of Campylobacter bacteria, which lives in chicken intestines and can cause diarrhea in humans who eat undercooked chicken.

In 1995, the FDA approved the use of fluoroquinolone antibiotics in chickens. Soon, though, doctors began to find Campylobacter strains in sick people that were resistant to fluoroquinolone, and the FDA eventually banned the antibiotic for use in chickens.

Dr. Howard Hill, a veterinarian and a director of the National Pork Producers Council, writes in an opposing view,

“America's livestock farmers use antibiotics to keep their animals healthy and, in turn, to produce safe food for consumers. And, contrary to the opponents of modern food-animal production, antibiotics are not being given excessively to pigs and cattle, and their use in livestock production is not the likely cause for an increase in antibiotic resistance in humans.

A 2006 report from the Institute of Food Technologists concluded: "Eliminating antibiotic drugs from food-animal production may have little positive effect on resistant bacteria that threaten human health. … Who knows? The risk of not using antibiotics could outweigh any risk of using them.

Elizabeth Parker, chief veterinarian at the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, wrote in Friday’s Times in response to a June 30 editorial that,

“Ranchers have an obligation to protect cattle health and welfare. We also have an obligation to protect human health by providing a safe beef supply. That’s why, for generations, cattle producers have worked closely with veterinarians in the careful use of antibiotics to prevent, control and treat disease.”

Judicious use guidelines have been around a lot longer than last month. It’s a way of an industry group saying, hey, we know this is a powerful technology, so we’ll use it carefully in order to retain access to the technology.

But, judicious use can evolve into routine use. The challenge is maximize the benefits of a technology while minimizing the risk. Science can be messy.

The unintentionally funny and still, inexplicably, Minister of Agriculture in Canada, Gerry-death-by-a-1,000-cold-cuts-and-isn’t-my-moustache-awesome Ritz, spoke at a press conference today. Macleans.ca has already published some of the Q&A, which I have edited here for brevity:

Q:  Do you now recognize that, that CFIA, both those inspectors were over, do you accept that they were stressed and they were stretched too thin and that, and maybe explain why the audits were conducted?

A:  Well as you know, I’m not involved in the day to day operations, so I can’t speak to the stress of the front line operators. 

Q: We talk a lot about what went wrong, where the failures were, but 22 people died here.  Where’s the accountability?  Has anyone been fired and are you willing to compensate the families that were so aversely affected by this clear failure of our system?

A: Well there was a lawsuit, as you know, and there were compensations paid out through McCain’s.  Other than that, as I said, it’s a very complex issue. 

Q: But Maple Leaf Foods took responsibility.  Why can’t the government take some sort of responsibility?  Clearly, there were breakdowns within the government and that’s acknowledged in this report.

A:  Well our, our responsibility is to move forward with a better, better food safety system and I pledge to the victims and the, you know, their families and friends that we will move forward.  That’s my responsibility, I accept it.

Q: So there’s no compensation to them?

A: No.

Q: There won’t be any?

Moderator: Okay, that was our last question.  Thank you Minister.

I used to be physically fit from playing hockey and squash and golf with friends in Guelph, Ontario. A lot of them worked in agriculture – for the feds, province, university, industry, and farm groups – and a lot of them insisted that people were disconnected from how food was produced and so support for agriculture sucked. If people were better educated about growing and preparing food, problems with food safety would be largely resolved and an Age of agricultural Aquarius would be achieved (Harmony and understanding, sympathy and trust abounding …)

So it was hardly surprising to read this morning that the best and brightest in Guelph told some federal politicians that people are disconnected from the food they eat.

Vern Osborne, assistant professor of animal and poultry science at the University of Guelph, said Canadians, especially young ones, are disconnected from the food they eat. A policy, he suggested, should include educational components that teach kids where their food comes from and how to actually prepare it. Kids have largely lost the ability to cook, he and others said.

Rickey Yada, professor of food science at U of G, agreed that young people have lost the ability to prepare even simple dishes, a fact that is contributing to widespread indifference towards food issues.

Such generalizations are of little use. My kids know how to cook; so do lots of others. Lots of people drive but don’t know how their cars work. Lots of people use computers and know little about integrated circuits. I recognize it’s trendy to say people are disconnected from food production, but so what? Where’s the evidence that having a connection with food –however that is defined --  will make people fitter, healthier and safer?