The FDA has been pretty busy the past few weeks. The regulatory agency recently filed a lawsuit to prevent, a New Jersey cheese manufacturer from making food ever again. The permanent injunction came in response to continued cleanliness issues and repeated positive tests for Listeria. Shortly after the announcement of the injunction against the cheese maker, a Denver catering company was almost shut down because of vermin, insects and Listeria contamination. Just days ago, the FDA asked U.S. Marshalls to seize over $1 million worth of food from a Tennessee processor and warehouse that had failed an inspection because of vermin and insect filth.
FDA warnings and injunctions are not particularly rare or unusual, but I did think it was interesting that each of these actions were in response to issues of cleanliness and vermin/insect infestation. These are the type of proactive measures that are necessary to keep foodborne illness out of our kitchens.
Unclean conditions and vermin/insect filth are not just warnings of a lack of sanitation but are also genuine threats for exposing food to dangerous pathogens. Insects could carry bacteria such as E. coli O157:H7 and Salmonella. Vermin like rats are capable of carrying parasites and can also harbor food poisoning bacteria. Many foodborne diseases can be caused from very minimal exposure to the pathogens that cause severe illness. As little as ten E. coli O157:H7 are needed to cause sickness, a cockroach would be able to carry millions of these microbes on a single appendage and insects have six appendages.
Listeria in airline food was the culprit responsible for an outbreak caused by chicken wraps served on an Australian airplane. The potentially lethal bacteria forced two women to go into labor early. Fortunately, there were no deaths from the listeriosis outbreak which is not always the case in this foodborne illness. Though listeriosis is fairly rare as food poisonings go, about 20% of the people who develop listeriosis die from the infection. Pregnant women and infants are at especially high risk of developing listeriosis.
It is not always the case that these unsanitary facilities get closed down before problems with consumers arise. Regulatory agencies have been in mostly a reactive state of mind for the past few decades. Moneys have dwindled, inspections have fallen, resources have been spread thin and the result is that agencies like the FDA have often enacted against companies after the list of outbreak victims grows large enough to tie together the facility responsible for introducing a foodborne illness to the public.
Not this time. These facilities could have hurt dozens possibly hundreds of people but the actions of the FDA may very well have prevented people from becoming victims of food poisoning. I hope that this momentum keeps these agencies moving forward and the proactive approach of preventing foodborne illness becomes the status quo for the FDA.
