Salmonella outbreak underscores need for reform

Concern about the ongoing salmonella outbreak linked to peanut butter has been running so high that 20 million hits have been logged to the Web site of the Food and Drug Administration in just two weeks. The FDA is keeping a database of recalled products—more than 800 so far—that used peanut butter from the Peanut Corporation of America whose Blakely, Georgia plant is the source of the outbreak.

A story on the recall in the The New York Times today questioned whether a requirement of the FDA's recall process that calls for a company's approval caused delays in warnings about products that used peanuts made in PCA's Blakely plant. "They can't even get a press release out on this stuff without industry approval. It's just unbelievable," Representative Rosa DeLauro, D-CT, told the newspaper. DeLauro is proposing that the FDA's food oversight division become a separate entity with mandatory recall authority.

On Monday, President Obama promised a full review of the FDA. The need for that was underscored today by an Associated Press report saying the PCA had operated another plant in Texas that for years went uninspected and unlicensed by government health officials. The plant in Plainview wasn't inspected until after the company fell under investigation by the FDA, according to Texas health records obtained by AP.

Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports, is calling on Congress to require the FDA to inspect such factories annually. "The FDA is supposed to be a watchdog for consumers, and for too long, this agency has been coming up short," said Jean Halloran, CU's Director of Food Policy Initiatives.

Today's tally of illnesses is 550 in 43 states with the most recent reported illness beginning on January 17, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Eight deaths have been associated with the outbreak— three in Minnesota, two in Virginia and one each in Idaho, North Carolina and Ohio.