PIRG Releases Food Safety Report

Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) has published a report on food safety in the United States. The report finds an increase in food recalls since 2013 but acknowledges that systemic advances in food-safety issue detection may partly account for that increase. The authors make a number of policy recommendations, including (i) requiring food-production plants to address the most common pathogens in their safety plans; (ii) establishing “clear enforcement consequences for recurring violations of food safety protections or plans”; (iii) declaring antibiotic-resistant strains of Salmonella as “an adulterant in meat and poultry”; (iv) improving food traceability; (v) granting the U.S. Department of Agriculture “mandatory recall authority for contaminated food”; and (vi) penalizing companies that “continue to sell products after a recall.”