Free Republic

Those sweet shellfish may be tempting, but eating oysters in Florida has been dangerous this year. Oysters have sickened people in the Sunshine State with three different types of illnesses, at least one of them deadly. Federal officials issued a warning recently for raw oysters harvested in Galveston Bay, Texas, and sold in Florida, along with seven other states. The oysters were potentially contaminated with norovirus and sold to restaurants and retailers. About 211 people were infected by the oysters and had diarrhea, vomiting and stomach pain within 12 to 48 hours after eating them. Publix Supermarkets said it sold...

San Francisco passed America's first ban on plastic bags in chain groceries and drugstores in 2007. In a research paper for the Institute for Law and Economics, law professors Jonathan Klick and Joshua Wright crunched state and federal data on emergency room admissions and food-borne illness deaths and figured that the San Francisco ban "led to an increase in infections immediately upon implementation." They found a 46 percent rise in food-borne illness deaths. The bottom line: "Our results suggest that the San Francisco ban led to, conservatively, 5.4 annual additional deaths." So is San Francisco's bag ban a killer? Conceivably,...

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) have partnered in creating six food safety booklets for different groups that are most susceptible to food borne illness. These pamphlets target adults, transplant recipients, pregnant women, and people with diabetes, HIV/AIDS, or cancer in an effort to reduce their risk for foodborne illnesses. These booklets contain much needed information for consumers who have an increased chance of becoming sick from the food they eat. The goal is to present clear and understandable information on how to confidently and safely prepare...

New analysis, interactive online map highlight the need to modernize the nation's food-safety systemWASHINGTON, D.C. – A new study by a former U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) economist estimates the total economic impact of foodborne illness across the nation to be a combined $152 billion annually. The Produce Safety Project, an initiative of The Pew Charitable Trusts at Georgetown University, published the report, Health-Related Costs from Foodborne Illness in the United States. In addition, an interactive online map that graphically represents this cost information for every state in the nation is available at www.MakeOurFoodSafe.org/cost_map. The report ranks states according...

While nominating Dr. Margaret Hamburg as head of the FDA and appointing Joshua Sharfstein as her deputy, President Obama showed a laudable passion as he addressed the nation regarding food safety. Unfortunately, his understanding of the situation is incorrect and his professed goal is counterproductive. President Obama showed he is blinded by the liberal conceit that the government is the most important factor in food safety: "There are certain things only a government can do. And one of those things is ensuring that the foods we eat are safe and don't cause us harm." This is nonsense. The government does...

WHEN mad cow disease was discovered in Washington State recently, it made headlines for days and brought action from the federal government. Coupled with a number of E. coli scares, it caused some Americans to swear off hamburger. But most people don't seem to worry about what experts say is a petri dish for food-borne illness: the home kitchen. "Everybody is so acutely aware of mad cow disease," said Janet Anderson, a clinical associate professor of nutrition and food sciences at Utah State University, "but people aren't aware of the fact that they don't even wash their hands when they...

Allegheny County health officials said Tuesday they will conduct genetic tests to determine if two new hepatitis A patients contracted the same virus that killed three and sickened more than 600 patrons and workers at a Beaver County restaurant. The Allegheny County Health Department wants to find out if the two patients are the outbreak's first secondary cases, department spokesman Guillermo Cole said. Officials have confirmed that at least 615 people contracted hepatitis A from green onions served in mild salsa and chili con queso at the Chi-Chi's Mexican Restaurant in Beaver Valley Mall. The outbreak is one of the...

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Over the last 25 years, outbreaks of foodborne illness linked to subsidized school lunches sickened tens of thousands of students and school staff, sent hundreds to the hospital and caused one death, according to a new report. Currently, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) spends about $7 billion annually to provide food or funding for more than 33 million lunches and breakfasts served daily to American schoolchildren. "However, USDA directly provides only a small percentage of food served in schools," according to lead author Dr. Nicholas A. Daniels of the University of California, San Francisco,...