food safety

Ending a visit prompted by a meat-inspection scandal, the EU food safety commissioner said Brazil's meat inspection system "must be independent and not under the influence of politicians and other actors," reported Reuters. EU commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis told the wire service that EU restrictions and stepped-up checks of meat from Brazil may not be removed in the near term.

The largest meatpacker in the world, JBS, has suspended operations at 33 of its 36 plants in Brazil "amid the corruption scandal that has caused some of the country's biggest export markets to ban Brazilian meats," said Reuters. A police investigation says meat inspectors accepted bribes to allow sales of low-quality meat, or did not inspect plants at all; the Agriculture Ministry says only a couple of dozen plants were targeted.

With a scandal clouding Brazil's meatpackers, Montana Sen. Jon Tester announced legislation for a 120-day ban on U.S. imports of meat from the South American country. The ban will give USDA "time to comprehensively investigate food safety threats and to determine which Brazilian beef sources put American consumers at risk," said Tester's office.

Brazil is the world's largest red meat and poultry exporter, but it is losing customers in a scandal over allegations that meatpackers have sold unsafe products for years, said the BBC. Four markets — China, the EU, South Korea and Chile — that account for nearly one-third of meat exports "have now announced restrictions on Brazilian meat."

It will take more than a year to write, but President Trump ordered a top-to-bottom reorganization of the federal government, to streamline its operation and discard unneeded programs. The project, under the control of the White House budget office, could provide an opening for calls to create a single food-safety agency, to centralize federal oversight of genetically engineered plants and animals, or to combine public nutrition programs that sprawl across several agencies.

Aflatoxin, created by a fungus, "is one of the most potent toxins on the planet," says Monica Schmidt of the University of Arizona, leader of a study on how to avoid crop loss to the toxin. Researchers developed a GMO corn variety with small RNA molecules that prevent the aspergillus fungus from creating the fungus in kernels of corn.

The USDA meat safety agency updated its guidance to foodmakers and retailers to encourage the use of the phrase "Best if used by" on packages that carry a product date. "This new guidance can help consumers save money and curb the amount of wholesome food going in the trash," said Al Almanza, deputy undersecretary for food safety.

A new report on consumer beliefs by the Pew Research Center found that a lot of Americans aren’t swayed by scientific findings that GMOs are safe to eat, that food beliefs are generally non-partisan, and that plenty of Americans are generally skeptical about science.

Two years ago, the FDA began testing foods for the presence of disease-causing bacteria as a way to learn how prevalent they are and how to prevent food-borne illness. In its latest round of tests, the agency said 1 percent of cucumbers and 3 percent of hot peppers, such as jalapeños and serranos, carried salmonella bacteria, said Stat, the medical news site.

The 8th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals refused to reconsider a ruling that gave Jack DeCoster and his son, Peter, three-month prison sentences for the 2010 outbreak of food illness linked to their egg farms, says Food Safety News. At the time, the DeCosters were believed to be the largest egg producers in the country.

With 700 million pounds of pesticide used every year, inventors are trying to create a new generation of pesticide-detectors, cheap enough for the public to afford, says Modern Farmer. One Belgian research team has developed a machine that can “smell” pesticides.

With few national guidelines, pet food is a Wild West of food safety, says Modern Farmer. Pet food is technically overseen by the FDA, but due to limited resources the agency has handed over that responsibility to the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO), which has no regulatory control and can only ask companies to adhere to voluntary guidelines.

In a speech to the New York Economic Club, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said, "I will eliminate all needless and job-killing regulations" in federal government. A fact sheet distributed by the campaign listed "specific regulations to be eliminated," including the "FDA Food Police," reported The Hill newspaper.

The five-second rule, long invoked by parents to allow their kids to "safely" eat food they dropped on the floor, is nothing but hokum, according to a report in Feedstuffs on new research published in the journal Applied & Environmental Microbiology.

In the more than two years since Subway was called out by a blogger for using azodicarbonamide, a chemical found in yoga mats and other non-food items, to make its bread dough lighter and stronger, a slew of fast-food chains have followed Subway’s lead and removed the chemical—but unlike Subway they’ve done it quietly, with little or no publicity, says Bloomberg.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will head the Department of Health and Human Services in the new administration, said President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday. “For too long, Americans have been crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies who have engaged in deception, misinformation, and disinformation when it comes to public health,” said Trump in announcing the nomination.