Food supply chain safety

A wave of food recalls fuels drive for food safety reform
The FDA told consumers Monday to stop eating anything containing pistachios; the FDA was tipped off by Kraft Foods on 24 March, after the company found salmonella in routine testing and recalled some trail mix
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Food safety standards must be shown to add to companies' bottom line
TraceGains says its supply-chain solutions help companies turn disparate data into actionable business and value chain intelligence — turning traceability from a cost center into a profit center
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Lax meat-import rules open Canada to bioterrorism
Former Canadian food inspector says the rules governing meat imports into Canada leave Canadians vulnerable to bioterrorism and outbreaks of dangerous bacteria such as listeria
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Questions raised about private inspections of food companies
What the mortgage meltdown did to the financial services sector, the recent salmonella outbreak has done to to food industry: critics charge that both cases exposed the inherent weaknesses of industries regulating and inspecting themselves
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Drug industry uneasy with Obama's choice for FDA deputy
Food, pharmaceutical, and medical device groups said they were happy with Margaret Hamburg, President Obama’s pick to lead the Food and Drug Administration (FDA); these groups are less comfortable with Joshua Sharfstein, the nominee to be her deputy; Sharfstein worked under Henry Waxman (D-California)
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Questions raised about private inspections of food companies
What the mortgage meltdown did to the financial services sector, the recent salmonella outbreak has done to to food industry: critics charge that both cases exposed the inherent weaknesses of industries regulating and inspecting themselves
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Obama to bolster food safety
Each year, about 76 million people in the United States are sickened by contaminated food, hundreds of thousands are hospitalized, and about 5,000 die; thirty-five years ago, the FDA. did annual inspections of about half of the nation’s food-processing facilities; last year, the agency inspected just 7,000 of the nearly 150,000 domestic food facilities; its oversight of foreign plants was even spottier
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Web site to offer real-time information on food in stores
Consumer Web site adds food rating to its roster of consumer safety and carbon-footprint ratings for non-food goods; food sold in supermarkets around the globe will be rated in terms of chemicals, colorings, additives, and nutrition
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Salmonella contamination found at Texas peanut plant
Salmonella found in ground peanuts in a Plainview, Texas plant which received peanuts from the now-bankrupt Georgia peanut processing company; contaminated products from the Plainview company were found in Colorado
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More and more nations are food-insecure
Globalization, life style changes, and fierce competition among food producers make developing nations food-insecure; “Epidemics are a disastrous but unavoidable consequence that we can only hope to limit,” one expert says
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Food poisoning strike 25 percent of Americans each year
Food poisoning affects an estimated 25 percent of Americans every year; calculations say there are 87 million cases every year, with 371,000 requiring hospitalizations and 5,700 dying
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Food safety is in farm worker's hands -- literally
Food safety experts says that the health and hygienic habits of migrant farms workers are an often-overlooked source of food borne illness
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Doomsday seed vault's stores are growing
In 1903, U.S. farmers planted 578 varieties of beans; by 1983 just 32 varieties remained in seedbanks; 46 countries collaborate to rescue some 53,000 of the 100,000 crop samples identified as endangered
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Regulators cannot cope with food counterfeiting, contamination
New worry: Between the extremes of accidentally contaminated food and terrorism via intentional contamination, lies the counterfeiter, seeking not to harm but to hide the act for profit
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Items in FEMA food kits may contain salmonella-tainted peanut butter
Food kits FEMA distributed to thousands of storm evacuees in Kentucky may contain peanut butter contaminated with salmonella
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