As ratings for broadcaster CNN continue a free-fall to nowhere, they’ve come out with a new insight: the 2011 listeria-in-cantaloupe outbreak that killed 32 was preventable.

So are 99 per cent of all outbreaks.

CNN Presents on Sunday will feature an in-depth look into the outbreak which, based on a text version appearing on the Intertubes today, is a cut-and-paste job with no new analysis or insight.

“After a months-long investigation surrounding the outbreak, CNN has found serious gaps in the federal food safety net meant to protect American consumers of fresh produce, a system that results in few or no government inspections of farms and with only voluntary guidelines of how fresh produce can be kept safe.”

Those gaps have always been there and are still there.

Dr. James Gorny, the FDA chief investigator who led a team to Jensen Farms in Colorado said, "We had melons from the grocery stores which were positive for Listeria, with the exact same genetic fingerprint as we found in all of the ill individuals. We had ill individuals with that same genetic strain of Listeria. We had food contact surfaces at the packing house of Jensen Farms with the exact same, genetically matched strain of Listeria. So we had lots and lots of evidence that this was ... as definitively as possible, a smoking gun, that this was the source of the contamination. ... The evidence is very, very strong in this case. Some of strongest I've ever seen.

"What turned the operation upside-down was some significant changes they made. It was a very tragic alignment of poor facility design, poor design of equipment and very unique post-harvest handling practices of those melons. If any one of those things would have been prevented, this tragedy probably wouldn't have occurred."

But the story of what happened at Jensen Farms, and why no one stopped the sale and shipments of the cantaloupes, also sheds light on serious problems in the nation's fresh produce food safety net, and a voluntary system created by businesses to ensure a quality product, known as third-party audits.

No kidding.

Just days before the Listeria outbreak, Jensen Farms paid a private food inspection company called Primus Labs to audit their operation. Primus Labs subcontracted the job to another company, Bio Food Safety, which sent a 26-year-old with relatively little experience to inspect Jensen Farms.

The auditor was James DiIorio, and he gave Jensen Farms a 96% score, and a "superior" grade. On the front page of his audit at the farm, DiIorio wrote a note saying "no anti-microbial solution" was being used to clean the melons.

Dr. Trevor Suslow, one of the nation's top experts on growing and harvesting melons safely, was shocked to see that on the audit at Jensen Farms.

"Having antimicrobials in any wash water, particular the primary or the very first step, is absolutely essential, and therefore as soon as one hears that that's not present, that's an instant red flag," Suslow said. The removal of an antimicrobial would be cause for an auditor or inspector to shut down an entire operation, he said.

"What I would expect from an auditor," Suslow said, "is that they would walk into the facility, look at the wash and dry lines, know that they weren't using an antimicrobial, and just say: 'The audit's done. You have to stop your operation. We can't continue.'"

But why just blame the auditors. Who bought these cantaloupes, and where was their internal expertise to assess the audit reports arriving on their desks before, presumably, the melons arrived on their retail shelves.

"These so-called food safety audits are not worth anything," said Dr. Mansour Samadpour, president and CEO of IEH Laboratories, one of the nation's largest food safety consulting labs for industry. "They are not food safety audits. They have nothing to do with food safety,"

Samadpour said consumers should have no faith in the current system of farm audits, because farms pay for their own inspections.

"If this industry is sincere and they want to have their products be of any use to anyone, they should be printing their audit reports on toilet paper," Samadpour said. "People who are commissioning these audits don't seem to understand that they are ... not worth the paper that they're written on."

So how best to improve the system? Legislation will do little or nothing, the auditing route has regular problems, and food safety is an afterthought in much of the commercial market in the absence of an outbreak. Suggestions? That’s a show I might be interested in watching.

A preview is below.

In 1959, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist challenged his colleagues to use submicroscopic particles to manufacture a wide range of products—an idea that captivated the imagination of scientists and inspired the science fiction movies “Fantastic Voyage” and “Innerspace.”

Fifty years later, “nano” (small) technology has moved from the science fiction realm to scientific fact, and federal regulators are laying the groundwork for monitoring a new generation of medical devices, drugs, cosmetics, and other products.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is continuing a dialogue on nanotechnology begun in 2011 by publishing proposed guidelines on the evaluation and use of nanomaterials in FDA-regulated products.

The first draft guideline, “Draft Guidance for Industry, Considering Whether an FDA-Regulated Product Involves the Application of Nanotechnology” was published in the Federal Register in June, 2011. The FDA is still reviewing and receiving comments on this document from the public.

In April 2012 the FDA is issuing two new draft guidelines for manufacturers of food substances and cosmetics, which are also open for public comment.

FDA Commissioner Margaret A. Hamburg, M.D., says the guidelines provide a starting point for the nanotechnology discussion. “Our goal is to regulate these products using the best possible science,” Hamburg says. “Understanding nanotechnology remains a top priority within the agency’s regulatory science initiative and, in doing so, we will be prepared to usher science, public health, and FDA into a new, more innovative era.”

Nanotechnology—the science of manipulating materials on a scale so small that they can’t be seen with a regular microscope—could have a broad range of applications, such as increasing the effectiveness of a particular drug or improving the packaging of food or altering the look and feel of a cosmetic.

“Guidance for Industry: Assessing the Effects of Significant Manufacturing Process Changes” describes factors industry should consider when determining whether a significant change in the manufacturing of a food substance affects its identity, safety or regulatory status (such as whether a substance is covered by an existing food additive regulation). A food substance is one that is added to food or to food packaging for purposes that include improving taste, texture, or shelf life.

This guidance covers “any manufacturing process change that might affect a food substance’s identity, intended uses, or the way it behaves in the body after it is eaten,” says Dennis Keefe, Ph.D., director of the Office of Food Additive Safety.

Keefe added that nanotechnology now is being studied in food packaging to combat bacteria and detect spoilage, and to improve the bioavailability (the degree and rate at which a substance is absorbed into one’s system) of nutrients, among other applications.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration Reportable Food Registry (RFR) logged 1,153 entries from Sept. 8, 2010 – Sept. 7, 2011, it’s second full year of reporting.

Among the highlights:

• 225 primary reports – initial reports about a safety concern with a food or animal feed (including food ingredients);
• 483 subsequent reports from suppliers or recipients of a food or feed for which a primary report had been submitted; and,
• 174 amended reports to correct or add information to previously submitted reports.

Reports were received from both domestic and foreign sources.

The 225 primary reports for Year 2 involved products in 22 commodity categories. Salmonella accounted for 38.2 percent of hazards, Undeclared Allergens accounted for 33.3 percent, and Listeria monocytogenes accounted for 17.8 percent.

The report notes that the RFR findings have spurred efforts to improve preventive measures in affected commodity areas, both by industry and FDA, and are helping the agency better target its inspection and sampling activities.

The RFR requires manufacturers, processors, packers and holders (warehousers, distributors, etc.) of FDA-regulated foods/feeds to quickly report to FDA via the online Safety Reporting Portal any foods, feeds or ingredients that could result in serious adverse health consequences to humans or animals. Reportable food submissions provide early warning to FDA about potential public health risks and increase the speed with which the agency and its partners at the state and local levels can investigate the reports and take appropriate follow-up action, including ensuring that the reportable foods are removed from commerce when necessary.

Surveys still suck.

But at least researchers from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recognize the limitations of self-reported food safety behavior, in this case applied to produce washing practices in the kitchen. From a recent paper in Food Protection Trends:

“Although washing does not guarantee removal of pathogens if the item has become contaminated, it increases the likelihood that pathogens will be removed, compared with not washing or using washing methods that are not recommended. Soaking and use of any type of cleaner are not recommended washing methods. Soaking does not remove contami¬nants as effectively as rubbing or rinsing produce under running water. Cleaners not meant for produce can introduce chemical contaminants, and produce washes are considered no more effective than water. Unlike other types of produce, almost all bagged, pre-cut let¬tuce in the market place is pre-washed. For bagged, pre-cut lettuce that is labeled as pre-washed, additional washing is not recommended as it is not likely to en¬hance safety and introduces the op¬portunity for cross-contamination of the product with pathogens that may be in the home kitchen. …

“This study has some strengths and limitations. One of the limitations is that the data are self-reported. We rely on consumers’ ability to both remember what they do and convey it accurately. Self-reporting is also subject to the de¬sire to give socially desirable responses; an observational study of consumer produce washing showed that far fewer consumers actually wash produce than report doing so in surveys. Also, the findings would have been more use¬ful if we had asked consumers why they washed cantaloupes and bagged, pre-cut lettuce. Finally, our survey suffered from the increasingly common problem of low response rates for household sur¬veys, although this does not necessarily bias the survey results. Some of the main strengths of this study are the sampling method, large sample size and weighting strategy, which allows our findings to be representative of the population. This allows us to make comparisons at the population level.

“Food Safety practices should be¬gin on the farm and be rigorously ap¬plied along the entire chain so that food products are safe for human consump¬tion without the need for extraordinary measures. Consumers, however, are the critical endpoint along the food supply chain. Educational efforts with respect to product washing should focus on explaining why it is important to wash hard rind produce such as cantaloupe be¬fore cutting, but not rewashing produce that is ready to be eaten.”

The abstract is below:

Consumer vegetable and fruit washing practices in the United States, 2006 and 2010
Food Protection Trends, Vol. 32, No. 4, Pages 164–172
Linda Verrill, Amy M. Lando 1 and Kellie M. O’Connell
Vegetables and fruits may become contaminated with pathogens anywhere along the farm-to-plate continuum. Therefore, the FDA recommends that vegetables and fruits that have not already been washed be washed by the consumer before slicing or consuming them. The FDA included in its 2006 and 2010 Food Safety Survey a series of questions about purchasing and washing of strawberries, tomatoes, cantaloupes, and bagged, pre-cut lettuce. The Food Safety Survey is a telephone survey tracking consumers’ knowledge, attitudes and behaviors related to food safety. In 2006, of those who buy these products, 98% wash strawberries, 97% wash tomatoes, 57% wash cantaloupes and 54% wash bagged pre-cut lettuce. Overall, for both years, more women than men wash cantaloupes, and more men than women wash bagged pre-cut lettuce. Cantaloupe washing declined from 2006 to 2010 for men, while lettuce washing increased for women in the same period. Targeted education campaigns should emphasize the importance of washing produce, especially fruits with hard rinds.