Improving sampling and risk communication at FSIS
Chuck Dodd is dreamy – as a student, that is.
What teacher wouldn’t be proud when a student does a class assignment, and it eventually gets published in a peer-reviewed journal?
.jpg)
Chuck took my graduate course, Food Safety Risk Analysis, in the early part of 2008. For the final assignment, students are required to take a food safety risk issue of their choosing, and develop a risk analysis report for an audience, like a regulatory agency, integrating risk assessment, management and communication.
Chuck’s report – after editing and thoughtful comments from colleagues – was recently published in Foodborne Pathogens and Disease, entitled, Regulatory management and communication of risks associated with Eschericia coli O157:H7 in ground beef.
The Kansas State University press release that went out this morning says, in part,
What consumers may not be finding out about recalls and the inspection process, however, could make them doubt the effectiveness of what is actually a pretty good system to keep food safe, according to Kansas State University researchers.
Charles Dodd, K-State doctoral student in food science, Wamego, and Doug Powell, K-State associate professor of food safety, published a paper in the journal Foodborne Pathogens and Disease about how one government agency communicates risk about deadly bacteria like E. coli O157 in ground beef.
Publications, Web pages and recalls are all used in this risk communication.
Dodd said that although the Food Safety and Inspection Service generally does a good job of keeping meat safe, it's easy for consumers to think the opposite, particularly when a recall tells them that the food in the fridge or pantry may be dangerous. In their study, Dodd and Powell looked at what information consumers can take away from the Food Safety and Inspection Service's Web site, and suggest government agencies can more clearly communicate their role in keeping the food supply safe.
"We as Americans tend to expect more from regulatory agencies than we should, so we set ourselves up for disappointment," Dodd said. "Occasionally, regulatory agencies may create unrealistic expectations by the way they communicate with the public. The message of our paper is to say that the Food Safety and Inspection Service is doing a good job, considering the amount of resources it has. We are trying to open up dialogue about how its role could be communicated more effectively." …
.jpg)
Testing is just one tool that the Food Safety and Inspection Service uses. Its role is to monitor what other stakeholders are doing to keep food safe. "As a regulatory agency, the Food Safety and Inspection Service is monitoring food safety, not necessarily testing it themselves," Dodd said. "I think that's what a lot of us consumers misinterpret. We need to remember that regulatory agencies allocate, not assume, responsibility."
He got an A in the class. And he collects his own cow pies for sampling (left).
Dodd, C.C. and Powell, D.A. 2009. Regulatory management and communication of risks associated with Eschericia coli O157:H7 in ground beef. Foodborne Pathogens and Disease, 6(6): 743-747.
Abstract
Foodborne illness outbreaks and ground beef recalls associated with Escherichia coli O157:H7 have generated substantial consumer risk awareness. Although this risk has been assessed and managed according to federal regulation, communication strategies may hamper stakeholder perception of regulatory efforts in the face of continued E. coli O157:H7 outbreaks associated with ground beef. To mitigate the risk of E. coli O157:H7 contamination in ground beef, the beef industry employs preharvest and postharvest interventions, while the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) provides regulatory oversight. Policy makers must understand and clearly express that regulation allocates, not assumes, responsibility. The FSIS role may be poorly communicated, leading consumers, retailers, and others in the farm-to-fork food safety system to misrepresent risks and creating unrealistic expectations of regulatory responsibility. To improve this risk communication, revisions may be needed in FSIS-related documents, Web pages, peer-reviewed publications, and recall announcements.
Great communications, lousy management: Is Maple Leaf the new Odwalla?
Last week I dusted off some old slides to talk with an industry group about best practices in food safety. I got bored of hearing myself say the same thing about 10 years ago, but sometimes, it’s best to stick to basics.
Risk analysis is composed of risk assessment, management and communication. Over the years I’ve studied dozens of outbreaks of foodborne illness and concluded that a producer, or processor, or retailer needs to be excellent at all three—assessment, management and communication – and if they fail at just one, they will suffer the economic and associated hardships.
There is no doubt that Michael McCain and Maple Leaf Foods has practiced excellent risk communication since being fingered as the source of a listeria outbreak in Canada that killed at least 20 and sickened 60. I’ve said so from the beginning. I’ve also said that
But that hasn’t stopped Canadians from gushing in a blindly patriotic way about how McCain set the ‘gold standard’ for reputational and financial management.
Maybe, but communications alone is never enough, just like science alone is never enough. And precisely because no one – government or industry – has come clean on who knew what when, it’s not surprising to hear
the Canadian federal government has delayed for months the release of notes on conference calls
held at the height of last summer's deadly listeriosis outbreak — a lag some experts say breaks Ottawa's own information laws.
.jpg)
At issue is an Access to Information request by The Canadian Press to the Privy Council Office for “all transcripts and minutes” of the crucial exchanges last August and September.
The Odwalla 1996 outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 in unpasteurized juice was also textbook risk communication, but the company was eventually revealed to have cut corners and ignored warning signs. Will Maple Leaf undergo similar scrutiny?
Below is an except from my 1997 book, Mad Cows and Mother’s Milk, about the Odwalla outbreak.
Sometime in late September 1996, 16-month-old Anna Gimmestad of Denver has a glass of Smoothie juice manufactured by Odwalla Inc. After her parents noticed bloody diarrhea, Anna was admitted to Children’s Hospital on Oct. 16. On 8 November 1996 she died after going into cardiac and respiratory arrest. Anna had severe kidney problems, related to hemolytic uremic syndrome and her heart had stopped several times in previous days.
The juice Anna — and 65 others who got sick — drank was contaminated with E. coli O157:H7, linked to fresh, unpasteurized apple cider used as a base in the juices manufactured by Odwalla. Because they are unpasteurized, Odwalla’s drinks are shipped in cold storage and have only a two-week shelf life. Odwalla was founded 16 years ago on the premise that fresh, natural fruit juices nourish the spirit. And the bank balance: in fiscal 1996, Odwalla sales jumped 65 per cent to $60 million (U.S.). Company chairman Greg Steltenpohl has told reporters that the company did not routinely test for E. coli because it was advised by industry experts that the acid level in the apple juice was sufficient to kill the bug.
.jpeg)
Who these industry experts are remains a mystery. Odwalla insists the experts were the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The FDA isn’t sure who was warned and when. In addition to all the academic research and media coverage concerning VTEC cited above — even all of the stories involving VTEC surviving in acidic environments — Odwalla claims ignorance.
In terms of crisis management — and outbreaks of foodborne illness are increasingly contributing to the case study literature on crisis management — Odwalla responded appropriately. Company officials responded in a timely and compassionate fashion, initiating a complete recall and co-operating with authorities after a link was first made on Oct. 30 between their juice and illness. They issued timely and comprehensive press statements, and even opened a web site containing background information on both the company and E. coli O157:H7. Upon learning of Anna’s death, Steltenpohl issued a statement which said, “On behalf of myself and the people at Odwalla, I want to say how deeply saddened and sorry we are to learn of the loss of this child. Our hearts go out to the family and our primary concern at this moment is to see that we are doing everything we can to help them.”
For Odwalla, or any food firm to say it had no knowledge that E. coli O157 could survive in an acid environment is unacceptable. When one of us called this $60-million-a-year-company with the great public relations, to ask why they didn’t know that E. coli O157 was a risk in cider, it took over a day to return the call. That’s a long time in crisis-management time. More galling was that the company spokeswoman said she had received my message, but that her phone mysteriously couldn’t call Canada that day.
Great public relations; lousy management. What this outbreak, along with cyclospora in fresh fruit in the spring of 1996 and dozens of others, demonstrates is that, vigilance, from farm to fork, is a mandatory requirement in a global food system. Risk assessment, management and communication must be interlinked to accommodate new scientific and public information. And that includes those funky and natural fruit juices.
