USDA Sponsors Food Safety Conference; CSPI Calls for Improvements to Outbreak Reporting

During a U.S. Department of Agriculture-sponsored food safety education conference in Atlanta this week, government, industry and academic speakers addressed a range of issues, including the causes of food borne illness, data collection and analysis, consumer behavior, food recalls, and foodservice workforce training. Caroline Smith DeWaal, food safety director with the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), spoke during the March 23-26, 2010, event to explain that nearly half the states do a poor job of tracking outbreaks.

Contending that better local and state reporting of foodborne illness outbreaks could hasten life-saving food recalls, Smith DeWaal apparently called for support of the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, currently pending in the Senate, which would require the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to improve the coordination of federal, state and local surveillance systems. The measure, already approved in the House, would also reportedly establish a national testing-laboratory network, improve the epidemiological tools available to the states and integrate foodborne illness surveillance with other bio-surveillance capabilities. See CSPI Press Release, March 24, 2010.