Outbreaks Reveal Food Safety Net's Holes

Although meat and dairy products are regulated by the Department of Agriculture, the safety of fruits and vegetables is the responsibility of the Food and Drug Administration and the states. But they have jurisdiction only over processing plants. Food safety at the farm level is largely self-regulated.

That has left government regulators in the position over the past eight years of nagging the produce industry to improve food safety by publishing voluntary guidelines and sending letters of admonishment.

The FDA's critics say the agency doesn't have the manpower to do more. From 2003 to 2006, the budget for the agency's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition has fallen 37 percent, according to agency data. That has meant fewer inspectors and less frequent inspections. In 2005, the FDA conducted 4,573 inspections of domestic food-processing operations. For 2006, the agency said, it hopes to conduct 3,400. There are more than 12,000 such plants in the nation.

"The reality of FDA's situation is they don't have the basic inspectors to inspect the food supply they're in charge of," said Caroline Smith DeWaal, food safety director for the Center for Science in the Public Interest. "They just don't have the people . . . to manage this problem at the farm level."

In mid-November, the CSPI petitioned the FDA, as well as the state of California, to set mandatory safety standards for fruits and vegetables. Consumer advocates also want Congress to give the agency more resources and enforcement powers. They point to two recent food recalls as examples of how rarely the FDA inspects some processing plants.

The FDA last inspected House of Thaller's processing plant in July 2002 and found deficiencies with the food safety plans, sanitation monitoring and pathogen testing, according to records obtained by the consumer group Food & Water Watch. On May 19 this year, the Knoxville, Tenn., company recalled 160,000 pounds of deli salads and dips because of potential contamination.

The agency inspected the facilities of Albert Lea, Minn.-based Mrs. Gerry's Kitchen three times in five years, most recently in August 2005. During those visits, inspectors identified problems with the company's food safety plans. In May, two days before the House of Thaller recall, Mrs. Gerry's recalled 54,000 pounds of salads because of potential contamination.

The FDA's Acheson said the agency's food safety work hasn't suffered as a result of funding constraints.

"As resources shift around in terms of overall total resources and within different centers, what the agency does is to shift to resources to address the maximum public health risk. The spinach investigation was, no question, a high priority," he said. "We can always do more with more, but do I think a lack of resources will impact efforts to prevent future outbreaks? No."

Buyers such as Safeway and Albertsons have chosen not to rely on government regulators and instead hired their own auditors to do inspections. But both food safety officials and auditors say there is little consistency because the government guidelines aren't specific enough.

"We don't have enough science to base those [guidelines] on to be comprehensive," said Kevin Reilly, a California food safety official who is participating in the investigation of the E. coli outbreak traced to bagged spinach. "What's necessary is an agreed-upon set of agricultural practices. Instead of 'Be aware of water quality,' we need to say, 'Test it with this frequency and in this fashion.' "

The privately funded system of audits and inspections, however, remains the produce industry's main tool for preventing future outbreaks.