Articles by Grist staff

Salmonella-linked Ga. peanut-butter plant had dismal sanitary record

Is it just me, or has our food-safety system lapsed into a state of decadence that might have made Caligula blush?

In the past few days, I've learned that the FDA ignored clear evidence that mercury was entering the food supply through high-fructose corn syrup; and that the FDA and USDA continue to ignore the increasingly obvious threat of antibiotic-resistant pathogens in industrial pork.

Now I hear mind-numbing news about the Peanut Corporation of America, whose Georgia plant is evidently the source of the salmonella outbreak that has sickened five hundred people, killing seven, nationwide.

Given the breadth of the outbreak and the sheer number of products infected, the company must have owned a mammoth  share of the industrial peanut-butter market; its tainted paste has shown up in everything from health-food store staples like Clif Bars to supermarket fodder like Famous Amos cookies.

According to a recent New York Times report, sanitary conditions at the Georgia plant have for years approached the tragi-comic. And despite a steady stream of reproaches from Georgia health officials, the company was allowed to continue churning out peanut butter for the nation's food factories until the salmonella disaster struck. Here's a summary of the company's rap sheet:

As evidence mounts of deadly bacteria from CAFO pigs, will the FDA and the USDA act?

Last June, Iowa State researcher Tara Smith delivered preliminary results of a study linking the deadly, antibiotic-resistant pathogen MRSA to pigs in concentrated animal feedlot operations. Despite mounting evidence of the link from Canada and Europe, U.S. public-health officials had never formally studied the issue, even though MRSA kills something close to 20,000 Americans every year -- more than AIDS.

In a must-read blog post at the time, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's ace health reporter Andrew Schneider documents the craven inaction of the FDA and the USDA as this public-health menace gained force. (I weighed in here.) As Schneider wrote:

An effective way to say there isn't a problem is never to look. That seems to be precisely what most U.S. government food-safety agencies are doing when it comes to determining whether the livestock in our food supply is contaminated with MRSA and if so, whether the often-fatal bacterium is being passed on to consumers who buy and consume that meat

Now Smith's research has been published in a peer-reviewed journal. Examining CAFOs scattered in Iowa and Illinois, Smith and her team found the MRSA strain in 49 percent of pigs and 45 percent of the workers who tend them. The sample size is small; more study must be done. Will the government undertake it?

A real reckoning with the MRSA-CAFO link could deliver a devastating blow to the meat industry. To keep animals alive while stuffed together by the thousands, standing in their own collected waste, it's evidently necessary to dose them with lots of antibiotics. CAFO conditions destroy animal's immune systems; antibiotics pick up the slack. Take them away, and the CAFO model might crumble.

That, presumably, is why the Bush agencies so studiously ignored the problem. Let's hope the Obama FDA and USDA do better.

Update [2009-1-28 8:40:10 by Tom Philpott]:

The Seattle PI's indispensable Schneider reacts to the publication of Smith's findings:

So I called some disease detectives and food safety specialists in agencies responsible for ensuring that our food supply is safe. You could almost hear them cringe over the phone. And, no, to the best of their knowledge, neither the FDA, USDA nor CDC had launched systematic testing of the U.S. meat supply for MRSA. One physician said that a study was being done on the MRSA strain (ST398) that Smith had found on the pigs but added, "I don't think it has anything to do with meat."

Canada's economic recovery plan includes green items

Stephen Harper, the recently reelected prime minister of Canada, is including plenty of environmental items in his government's $40 billion (about $33 billion U.S.) economic stimulus bill, including tax credits and grants to support homeowners fund energy efficiency improvements.

Here's the government's own rundown of the plan's green items:

Action to Build a Greener Canada -- Budget 2009 targets investments that improve Canada's environment. These include:

* $1 billion for green infrastructure projects.
* $1 billion over two years for renovation and energy retrofits to social housing.
* $300 million over two years to the ecoENERGY Retrofit program.
* $1 billion for clean energy research, development and demonstration projects.
* $87 million over two years for key Arctic research facilities.
* $245 million over two years for the cleanup of federal contaminated sites.
* $10 million to improve government environmental reporting. (Unless otherwise noted, all amounts are in Canadian dollars)

Harper's conservative government is also saying the right thing about climate change. According to the CBC, the "government said it's committed to reducing greenhouse gases by 20 per cent by 2020, pledging over the next five years to give $1 billion in support to projects that encourage sustainable energy."

But cutting those emissions seems to hinge on the successful development of carbon capture and storage technology. Harper's budget would "provide $15-million over five years towards research, and another $850-million over the same period for clean-energy demonstration projects, including large-scale carbon capture," according to the Toronto Globe and Mail.

Is U.N. secretary-general planning pre-Copenhagen gathering?

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is set on jump-starting international climate negotiations, according to a Financial Times article (registration required).

The report appears to be based on comments made today by Yvo de Boer, the executive secretary of the UN climate convention. De Boer's remarks, made at the Globe International meeting in London, were picked up by other news organizations, but the FT's reporters put much greater emphasis on Ban's apparent plans to call a summit in the near term.

The BBC piece makes no mention of a summit, while Reuters buried the summit mention further down, suggesting that the U.N. chief isn't as far along in planning as the FT piece would make it seem. From the Reuters piece: "De Boer said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon hoped to convene a 'small but representative' group of governments and heads of state in the spring to identify key political issues. 'What I would like to see come out of a process like that is first of all a shared vision that politically has to be delivered and agreed in Copenhagen,' he said."

Ban certainly did talk climate change with two high-level U.S. officials today, as made clear in this bit of the transcript from the daily U.N. press briefing:

Question: What did Secretary-General Ban say to Susan Rice when he met with her this morning?

Deputy Spokesperson: As you probably heard, Susan Rice came out at the stakeout this morning, and I certainly can confirm that the subjects that she mentioned and the way forward that she laid out is in line with the readout that I received. Just to recap, for those of you who may have missed the readout of the Secretary-General's conversation with President Obama on Friday afternoon:

The Secretary-General received a call early on Friday afternoon from President Barack Obama. The two leaders discussed a range of issues of common concern and interest. The Secretary-General underlined the importance of the US-UN partnership and stressed the need for the two to work closely together on major issues like the global economic crisis, climate change, food security and in the resolution of regional crises, particularly those in the Middle East and Africa.

The Secretary-General and the US President discussed ongoing efforts at UN reforms and the Organization's need for adequate political support and funding. The Secretary-General was encouraged by the US President's assurance of strong support as the Organization makes further progress in this direction. They also looked forward to mutual visits.

The Secretary-General also had a very cordial conversation with United States Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, at which they discussed issues of multilateral interest and importance such as food security, the Darfur peace process, climate change and management reform in the UN. The Secretary of State emphasized the importance of working together with the UN in the Middle East, Afghanistan and Iraq. And the two leaders discussed greater cooperation in UN reform and budgetary issues as well as mutual visits.

Based on this readout and Susan Rice's readout at the stakeout, I think you have some idea of where we are going on this.