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News & Analysis | REG•WATCH Blog | Press Room
Saturday, April 09, 2005
Deadly food poisoning breaks out while White House fiddles
Listeria — the deadly foodborne pathogen with the second highest hospitalization rate and single highest fatality rate of all foodborne pathogens — is breaking out all over: FDA has ordered a nationwide recall of Sea Specialties brand smoked salmon, while a Michigan sausage maker, a Florida maker of chicken meat wraps, and a California producer of teriyaki chicken products all announced voluntary recalls of their products this week, because of potential Listeria contamination.
Listeria could be breaking out all over, but the White House could soon be overseeing the break-up of already weakened safeguards against this deadly food poisoning. As we reported in the last issue of the Watcher, the White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs invited corporate special interests to nominate regulatory protections that they wanted to see weakened or eliminated. Even though the relatively new interim final rule on Listeria was already significantly weakened by the Bush administration from the Clinton administration’s original proposal, the White House has actually endorsed the food industry’s call for further weakening Listeria protections. As we observed, the White House is looking to have it both ways: touting its (weakened) Listeria rule as a regulatory accomplishment, even as it has endorsed industry’s call for destroying what little protection we have.
Posted by Robert Shull
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