Donna Rosenbaum
Blog Post List
June 1, 2010
The laws governing the food - safety functions of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have not been substantially updated in more than 70 years , but congressional lawmakers will hopefully soon change that fact. The U.S. Senate is expected to vote soon on t he FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (S. 510) , a bill that would give the agency the powers to help prevent foodborne illness before people get sick instead of just react to outbreaks after they happen . The bipartisan legislation would provide FDA with mandatory recall authority, improve federal inspections of food -...
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February 26, 2010
It’s been a crazy week here at S.T.O.P. --Safe Tables Our Priority! I have been getting ready to head out to Washington, D.C. with a group of victims and family members who have gotten ill from from FDA-regulated products. While a lot has been going on here, there has also been plenty going on in the news. Here’s a sample of what we’ve been hearing about this week in regards to food safety. As always, you can receive this information as well as times updates on food safety information and recalls delivered right to your e-mail inbox by signing up for our S.T.O.P. E-alerts . Salmonella in...
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February 19, 2010
Antibiotics are currently used widely and irresponsibly in raising farm animals. These antibiotics are meant for treating humans and this use in animals entering the food chain breeds antibiotic resistant bacteria that make people sick, and are much harder to recover from. We have been aware for quite sometime that this happens. Fifteen years ago, when Flouroquinolone antibiotics which were meant for human consumption were approved for use in animals, physicians soon started seeing C ampylobacter strains causing human illness that were resistant to Fluoroquinolone treatment. The Food and Drug...
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February 11, 2010
Imagine the perfect Valentine’s Day dinner…you and your sweetheart surrounded by hearts, flowers, music and romance at the fanciest restaurant in the city. You’re eating a decadent beef dinner, complete with dessert and wine. It’s the perfect night with the one you love—until you realize you might be paying with your health as well as your money. Many people have heard of E. coli 0157:H7, and know that it is a very harmful bacteria coming from cattle fecal contamination and that it should be tested for and kept out of food. What they don’t know is that the Centers for Disease Control and...
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February 4, 2010
There has been a lot of food safety news and food safety talk recently, but very little meaningful action has taken place to protect consumers. Awareness of food safety is important and we appreciate it, but if no action takes place then its value is lost. Recently, we wrote about the anniversary of the PCA peanut products outbreak that happened one year ago. Today, we received notice that 120 of the 700 victims who were sickened are receiving a settlement from PCA's insurance company. While nothing will ever take away the suffering these victims went through, this is still good news for them...
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January 28, 2010
S.T.O.P.—Safe Tables Our Priority extends our congratulations to Dr. Elisabeth Hagen on her nomination for the position of Undersecretary for Food Safety. Dr. Hagen has hands on experience working for the United State’s Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) in addition to being board-certified in both internal medicine and infectious diseases. She has also been in various management positions that include risk assessments and applied epidemiology activities that include foodborne illness investigations. I am confident that these qualifications and her...
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January 22, 2010
I hope you all have had a great week. At S.T.O.P.- Safe Tables Our Priority (S.T.O.P.) , we sponsor call-in TeleSeminars with food safety experts on interesting topics several times throughout the year. We’re planning our Spring 2010 call now and want to know which food poisoning and food safety topics you would like to hear about most….what interests you and what will benefit you the most? Here are a few possibilities to choose from: Option 1: School Lunch Safety We’ve been seeing a lot of news articles and blog posts these past few weeks about the safety and quality of school lunches...
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January 15, 2010
This week is the one year anniversary of the PCA outbreak when Salmonella - contaminated peanut products caused a major, multi-state foodborne-illness outbreak -- an outbreak that occurred as a result of outdated and ineffective regulation and oversight by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Nine people died, over 700 were sickened, and close to 3900 products containing peanuts or peanut paste were recalled. Many people lost mothers, fathers, and other close relatives; others had children or other family members who fell ill, or were sickened themselves. Outraged Congressmen and Senators...
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December 21, 2009
Here is the round up for this week. A lot of interesting articles and concern for food safety, which is good. Remember, to receive articles and food safety information and recalls sign up for our S.T.O.P. E-alerts . Have a great weekend! 26,500 school cafeterias lack required inspections USA Today article with more coverage on the un-safe conditions in school cafeterias, including the number of schools that fail to have their kitchens inspected enough or even AT ALL. Va.-based peanut company executives seek bite of $1 million policy Update on a Lynchburg VA peanut distributor’s executives who...
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December 9, 2009
With H1N1 casting a shadow on all our social interactions, food safety is particularly important this holiday season. Not only do we need to think about how long that eggnog has been sitting on the buffet table – or left on the counter in the kitchen before it was served – we also need to worry about food handling and not passing along Swine Flu. That’s why S.T.O.P. Is conducting a special tele-seminar on Holiday Foods and Food Safety, next Thursday, December 17 at 3pm ET . Chef Myron “Keith” Norman will join me in a conversation about what to look out for and what questions to ask to help...
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December 4, 2009
I hope you all had a good week. We’ve been hustling and bustling over here at S.T.O.P. but we still wanted to give you a heads up on the interesting stories regarding food safety this week. Here are some articles and blog posts that caught our attention. Remember to sign up for our free S.T.O.P. E-alerts to get this and more information delivered to your inbox! Mayo reports on slaughterhouse illness research Doctors from the Mayo Clinic confirm that 24 illnesses in slaughterhouses were caused by an autoimmune response to a mist of pig brain tissue Some Premium Edge cat food products recalled...
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December 3, 2009
We have been very busy these past few weeks at S.T.O.P. - traveling, fund raising, educating and advocating- all in order to help protect our nation’s food supply. In spite of all this activity, I never forget why I do this: to prevent people getting sick from devastating foodborne illnesses that damage lives forever. I do this for people like Linda , a young woman in her 20’s, who should have the whole world ahead of her. But, due to long-term consequences from the E. coli - contaminated meat that she ate when she was 6 years old, her life is different than most women her age. W hen she was...
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November 24, 2009
Safe Tables Our Priority is celebrating our 16th anniversary this holiday season. We have accomplished so much in the past year, and we’re even more excited about what we plan to accomplish in the future. Here is a sampling of what we’ve been doing this year and projects that we’ve started: Created a Victim Helpline: 1-800-350-S.T.O.P.--Begun a Long-term Complications Study that will help us track victims who have suffered long-term consequences--Sent out S.T.O.P. E-alerts to inform the public about food safety information and recalls--Set up victim matching to provide support--Started...
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November 22, 2009
We’ve been very busy over at S.T.O.P. due to the Food Safety Modernization Act that just passed through the Senate HELP Committee this week. A lot of the stories and information for this week’s round-up pertain to the bill and people supporting it. You can receive these updates on food safety, plus recalls and more by signing up for our S.T.O.P E-alerts . U.S. Food Safety Likely to Get Overhaul in 2010 Reuters article about the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee passing the Food Safety Modernization Act. The full Senate probably won’t vote on the bill until 2010. Food...
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November 18, 2009
Recent reports have highlighted what S.T.O.P. has known for a long time: that the long-term consequences of foodborne illness are under-reported, under-diagnosed and not given nearly enough public health attention. The negative impact of this lack of attention comes in two forms. First, proper attention and medical care is not given to people who suffer from long-term consequences, such as Guillain Barre Syndrome (paralysis), Reactive Arthritis, Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), and Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome (HUS) , just to name a few. Second, the effects of these consequences are not being...
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September 10, 2009
Today, victims of foodborne illness, including mothers and their children, are dropping off lunch bags to Senate offices in Washington, DC and Senate offices in several communities throughout the country. These mock-up lunch bags detail the potential health hazards that may exist in common lunch items such as sandwiches, snacks, berries and juice- foods that caring moms across the country are packing up to send their kids back to school with, and foods that we take for granted as being safe. As the executive director of S.T.O.P.- Safe Tables Our Priority, an organization that has been...
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