Ep. 184. Hottest Topics of 2024: Outbreaks, Food Chemicals, FDA Changes, and More

Summary

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Food Safety Matters — Ep. 184: Hottest Topics of 2024: Outbreaks, Food Chemicals, FDA Changes, and More

Date: December 24, 2024
Host(s): Stacy Acheson, Adrienne Blum, Bob Ferguson, Bailey Henderson
Podcast by: Food Safety Magazine

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Episode Overview

This year-in-review episode of Food Safety Matters brings together the editorial team to discuss the most pressing food safety issues and stories of 2024. They cover major illness outbreaks, regulatory changes, key technologies, chemical concerns in foods, and the evolving landscape of national and international policy. The discussion is rich, data-driven, and peppered with insights relevant to food safety professionals and anyone concerned with the security of the global food supply.

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Key Topics & Highlights

1. High-Profile Outbreaks and Recalls (06:21–42:13)

Boar's Head Listeria Outbreak

• Incident: In May, a deadly listeria outbreak was traced to Boar's Head ready-to-eat deli meats, specifically liverwurst.
  • Stats: 10 deaths, 61 illnesses (60 hospitalizations), 7+ million pounds of products recalled.
  • Plant History: Inspection reports revealed a two-year history of severe sanitation failures at the Jarrett, VA plant—leaky pipes, mold, insects, blood pooling, lack of environmental listeria swabbing.
  • Regulatory Fallout: USDA FSIS launching regulatory changes: broader listeria species testing, training enhancements, clearer inspection protocols, and improved oversight of federal-state cooperative inspection agreements.
  • Quote:
    • "Given the plant's history of repeated sanitation failures, it may have been inevitable that Listeria monocytogenes established itself in the facility and evaded detection." — Article by Dr. Glass et al. referenced by Adrienne (10:39)
    • “It's hard to find anything that went well on this case that was done right... This one's going to become a textbook case.” — Bob Ferguson (15:01)
  • Discussion: The team draws parallels to the Peanut Corporation of America and notes how detection technology (e.g., whole genome sequencing, PulseNet) helps but doesn't itself prevent outbreaks. The importance of systemic prevention and not simply reactive action is emphasized.

McDonald’s E. coli Outbreak via Onions

• Incident: In October, E. Coli O157:H7 outbreak linked to yellow onions supplied by Taylor Farms, used specifically in McDonald’s Quarter Pounders.
  • Stats: 104 illnesses, 34 hospitalizations, 4 HUS cases, 1 death.
  • Traceability: Quick response traced the outbreak within approximately a week through supply chain data and consumer purchase interviews rather than solely on genome sequencing; voluntary recall by Taylor Farms and action by other restaurant chains.
  • Unresolved Issues: No root cause identified; lack of public closure/matching strains led to consumer unrest.
  • Quotes:
    • “The lack of an understanding of a root cause... Very unsatisfying to me and I would imagine to consumers as well.” — Stacy Acheson (23:10)
    • “Whole genome sequencing... is not a panacea. They did not find matching strains.” — Bob Ferguson (25:06)

Additional Significant Outbreaks

• Grimmway Farms Carrots: Ongoing outbreak (since November) — bagged organic carrots, 39 illnesses, 15 hospitalizations, 1 death; multi-country recall ongoing.
• Yushang Foods: Listeria in ready-to-eat meats, 19 sick (17 hospitalized), 2 fetal losses; links to persistent facility contamination.
  • “Isolates from the patients... are closely genetically related to Listeria strains... since December of 2023, which could indicate resident contamination in the facility.” — Adrienne Blum (33:09)

Recall Study Insights

• Data: A Journal of Food Protection study covering 35,000 recalls (2002–2023) found that Listeria and Salmonella accounted for 40% of recalls; allergens 28%.
  • “Pretty staggering statistics.” — Adrienne (35:42)

Technology’s Transformative Role

• Ongoing shift: Rapid identification via WGS, databases like PulseNet, shopper and hospital data.
  • Still, technological advancement must be paired with persistent, proactive plant-level controls and environmental monitoring (“Test until you find it, not until you get a negative.”—Bob Ferguson, 39:37).

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2. Regulatory, Legislative, and Programmatic Developments

FDA Human Foods Program Reorganization (42:38–50:16)

• Launched: Official October 2024.
• Focus Areas: Microbiological food safety, chemical safety, and nutrition.
• Initiatives: Streamlined complaint processing, ag water rule, FSMA 204 implementation, reviews of additive approval and post-market assessment.
• Uncertainty: Upcoming administration change (Robert F. Kennedy Jr. expected as HHS Secretary), tightened budget, and resources at issue.
  • “The uncertainty is hard if your goal is status quo with what the FDA has been doing... But if your goal is to have more activity... the human foods program is going to be very, very busy.” — Bob Ferguson (49:14)

Avian Influenza (HPAI) in Poultry and Dairy (50:16–57:21)

• Spread: From birds to dairy herds, cats, pigs, and some beef cattle; 95 million birds culled since '22.
• Food Safety Angle: Pasteurization inactivates the virus; raw milk presents ongoing risks.
• Human Risk: Primarily via animal exposure; human-to-human transmission a concern for the future.
• Regulatory/Policy Uncertainties: Conflicts from RFK Jr.’s public health positions; potential for national shortages.
  • "When ideologies and public health collide. Right. I don't, it's just again, the big question mark." — Stacy Acheson (55:01)
  • “If this continues to spread... there could be significant shortages of food, poultry, beef, eggs...” — Bob Ferguson (55:51)

USDA Revisions: Salmonella in Poultry (57:21–63:00)

• Tightened standards for Salmonella in poultry; 5 serotypes targeted with routine sampling and new final product standards. Not all serotypes classified as adulterants (as some advocacy groups demand).
• Framework allows for adaptive response as public health significance serotypes change.
  • Related Fact: 40% of recalls over 20 years due to Salmonella/Listeria.
  • “This is going to be something really interesting to watch unless you can make it Salmonella species.” — Bob Ferguson (62:07)

FSMA 204 Traceability Rule: Industry Readiness & Challenges (64:01–72:57)

• Compliance Date: January 2026
• Concerns: Many businesses, particularly smaller or late-stage supply chain actors, are struggling with costs, technological capability, and logistical complexity (lot codes, data collection, labor).
• Proposed Delays: Several legislative efforts attempted to delay or ease the rule, but none advanced.
  • “A weak link type system… if you can’t trace it back through all the links, it doesn’t work.” — Bob Ferguson (72:04)

Food Additives & Chemical Safety: The New Battleground (72:57–83:00)

• State-level bans (ex: California Food Safety Act) often precede or spur FDA action (e.g., on BVO, Red Dye 3).
• Patchwork of US state, federal, and international regulatory environments causing challenges for industry.
• “FDA is constantly chasing what California is doing and what consumers are demanding.” — Bailey Henderson (77:24)
• Funding and mandate limitations slow FDA; tougher scientific standards needed for nationwide bans.
  • “If we ban something… and we do not have the scientific evidence to support its ban, we will lose in court.” — FDA Commissioner Califf, quoted by Adrienne (83:00)
• Broader public attention to food chemicals has never been higher, per Bailey Henderson.

Heavy Metals, Packaging, Pesticide Risks (83:00–97:23)

• Public/Regulatory Interest: Heightened concern over heavy metals (especially in baby/child foods), bisphenols, phthalates, PFAS, nanoplastics, and residual pesticides.
• State actions (like California bans), tougher EFSA/EU standards (potential EU BPA ban).
• Recent detects and recalls (Kraft Heinz Lunchables, cinnamon apple sauce).
• Advances in detection technology allow regulators to see lower levels of contaminants—raising the challenge of balancing toxicological risk versus “zero tolerance.”
  • "Do you try to eliminate every one of these pesticides to zero, which is impossible, or do you find some toxicological risk assessment that makes sense?" — Bob Ferguson (94:05)
• Tradeoffs in food packaging: Advanced materials can help fight pathogens but may leach chemicals (“Is that a good or a bad thing?”—Bob, 97:16).

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Memorable Moments & Quotes

• Bob Ferguson (15:01, Boar’s Head): "It's hard to find anything that went well on this case that was done right. This one's going to become a textbook case..."
• Stacy Acheson (23:10, McDonald's/Onions): "The lack of an understanding of a root cause...very unsatisfying to me and, I would imagine, to consumers..."
• Bailey Henderson (77:24, Additive Legislation): “FDA is constantly chasing what California is doing and what consumers are demanding...”
• Adrienne Blum (10:39, Listeria Plant): “Given the plant's history...it may have been inevitable that Listeria monocytogenes established itself in the facility and evaded detection.”
• FDA Commissioner Califf (quoted, 83:00): “If we ban something...and do not have the scientific evidence to support its ban, we will lose in court.”
• Bob Ferguson (39:37, Tech): “Test until you find it, not until you get results.”
• Stacy Acheson (55:01, Ideology vs. Public Health): “When ideologies and public health collide...again, the big question mark.”

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Episode Structure and Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment | |------------|-----------------------------------------------------| | 00:00–06:21| Intros, Audience/Guest Thanks, Show Announcements | | 06:21–42:13| Outbreaks & Recalls: Listeria, E.coli, Carrots | | 42:38–50:16| Regulatory Changes: FDA Human Foods Program | | 50:16–57:21| Avian Influenza (HPAI) and Food Safety | | 57:21–63:00| USDA Poultry/Salmonella Framework | | 64:01–72:57| FSMA 204 Traceability Rule | | 72:57–83:00| Food Additives & Chemical Contamination | | 83:00–97:23| Heavy Metals, Packaging Chemicals, Pesticide Issues | | 97:23–End | Closing Reflections & Summary |

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Concluding Thoughts

This episode provides a sweeping, detailed look at 2024’s pivotal food safety stories—blending scientific, regulatory, technological, and public trust dimensions. It’s an essential listen (or review) for professionals needing to stay atop shifting ground in outbreak response, regulation, and consumer expectations. The evolving role of technology, mounting chemical scrutiny, legislative complexities, and the need for active industry engagement are recurring themes.

Food Safety Magazine’s team underscores that these issues aren’t isolated; technology, outbreaks, regulation, and policy are tightly woven—a “motherlode” year with many rabbit holes to explore. Upcoming years promise even more change, with shifts in administration, continuing outbreaks, and rising consumer advocacy. The need for vigilance, transparency, and adaptability has never been clearer.

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For further reading, resources, and full articles referenced, visit: food-safety.com
Previous must-listen episodes:

• Ep. 162 (Jan 23): Brian Sylvester on the California Food Safety Act

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“Take good care of yourselves and those around you and we'll talk to you soon.” — Stacy Acheson

Transcript

[A]

Foreign. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Food Safety Matters, the podcast for food safety professionals. I'm Stacy Acheson, publisher of Food Safety magazine, and today I'm joined by Adrienne Blum, our editorial director, Bob Ferguson, president of strategic consulting, and Bailey Henderson, our digital director editor. It's so great to have our whole team together for this special year in review episode where we cover all the biggest stories of the year. Yes, that is the year of our Lord 2024. We made it. Well, we're almost there. As of this recording, soon we can, like, you know, close the door, call it a day, call it a wrap. But now that I've got you all here, this gives me a great opportunity to extend my thanks to this amazing team for everything that they do every single day of the year to ensure the success of the podcast. So y' all are great. Thank you so, so much. I would also like to thank all of the guests that we've had on the podcast this year. Thank you for making time in your very busy schedules and for some, thank you for venturing out beyond your comfort zone to even be on a podcast. So we know that there are a few of you, but thank you. Thanks for stretching with us. And lastly, but first, on our minds every time we sit in front of these microphones, thank you to our listeners, you food safety professionals from around the world, 142 countries in 2024, and many of you have been fans of the show for a very long time. We're so grateful that we continue to earn your support and that you choose to spend this time with us. And thank you for all you do to protect the global food supply. And now I'm going to geek out a little bit and let you know that in 2024 you downloaded close to 50,000 episodes and you continue to make Food Safety Matters one of the most successful podcasts in the world. You heard that right. Food Safety Matters ranks In the top 10% of all podcasts in any category around the world. I'm doing things with my hands now, like, you can see me going around the world. And for metrics, geeks like me, that ranking is from Buzzsprouts, and that's based on AIB 7 day download metrics per episode. It's very impressive and it just blows me away every time, which is why I love. I check it every month, you know, just to make sure we're still there, we're averaging and we're there. So it's really impressive. And thank you to everyone.

[B]

Stacey, I know I'm not supposed to say anything at this point, but 142 countries and the top 10%, that's impressive.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Nice work. Nice work for you guys.

[A]

Well, Bob, I mean, come on, you know, 142 countries. 142. That's really good. In the early days when we started doing this episode, we would, like, give shout outs too, right? Myanmar.

[C]

That's right.

[B]

I remember that.

[A]

That's right. Or Myanmar. Right. I forget how you pronounce that one. And Mauritius.

[B]

And that's three quarters of the world's countries. Three quarters of the world's countries.

[A]

Now, there is definitely concentration. You know, not all of those are in the, you know, the high, high numbers, but there's representation and, you know, we'll take it. It matters. Food safety matters.

[B]

Absolutely does.

[C]

It's great to know we are reaching so many people, you know, the. Who are concerned about and want to improve food safety around the world. Definitely great stats.

[A]

Yeah. And for all these years running, you know, it's. It's that that the longevity here is also becoming, well, continues to be very, very impressive. So. All right, so before I turn this over to the team to get it rolling on all of our great topics, I am very happy to share with you all that the agenda for the 2025 Food Safety Summ, produced by Food Safety magazine and will be taking place May 12th through the 15th in Rosemont, Illinois, is live on our website. And since I'm doling out thank yous, I'm going to say thank you again to our educational advisory board and its chair, Jillian Kelleher, who have produced another amazing, informative, timely and unique lineup. So don't wait. Visit foodsafetysummit.com and you can see the whole list. And it's not too soon to register. As another thank you to our podcast audience, you can use our special discount code, FSMATters15, which will earn you, oh, imagine that, a 15% discount on registration. Plus, if you register early, that will go on top of the early bird discount, so you can really rack up those savings, which we all like to do. So Once again, visit foodsafetysummit.com and use fsmatters15 when you check out. We're already. I'm happy to share that we're already seeing record registration numbers this early for us to get that kind of traction early in the game. And it's happening. So we're very, very pleased to see that. So come join this incredible community of food safety professionals in person May 12th through the 15th in Rosemont, Illinois. And now As I mentioned, we've got a lot to cover today. So as always, there will be links to all the articles, which is going to be a lot. So it's like the motherload of links that we will be covering today. And I also want to remind you, like I always do, that if you don't already, you can follow us on LinkedIn X and Facebook, just search for Food Safety magazine. And of course, to take a deeper dive into all of the content that we offer, Visit our website, food-safety.com and now, Adrian, do you want to get us started on the the meat of the issues, so to speak the matter?

[C]

I'd be happy to, Stacy. So, as you all know, if you're fans of this podcast and you've listened to our Year in Review episodes before, this episode is all about talking about, in reviewing some of the biggest food safety stories from the year. And we're what do we consider to be the biggest? Okay, so we look at not only stories that made big impacts as far as regulatory or regulatory, legislative, technology, but then also like food safety incidents, unfortunately, and foodborne illness outbreaks, things like that. But then also we looked at what were some things that our audience was paying attention to that made that we saw a lot of interest in from our audience and from the food safety community at large. So kind of an amalgamation of all those different things. And then we want to review and talk about some of those things with you today. So kind of to kick us off here on some of our biggest topics for 2024, I think that we would certainly be remiss if we didn't mention some of the high profile and unfortunately fatal foodborne illness outbreaks and associated recalls that we have seen that have been linked to microbial contamination and you know, kind of where have they left us and what have they taught us? So we've seen a lot of these actually in, you know, kind of the Latter Half of 2024 too. It feels like it's been a lot and some of you have probably seen some headlines to that effect in the wider news media. You know, are there more recalls right now? Are there more outbreaks right now? A lot of questions from consumers about that sort of thing. So, you know, kind of just to review what we've, what we've seen with some of these really high profile and as I said, unfortunately, fatal foodborne illness outbreaks. You know, back in May, we started seeing some illnesses that the CDC identified as being associated with Boar's Head Deli, Ready to Eat Deli Meat products and Specifically the liverwurst product. Ultimately, this outbreak resulted in 10 deaths and 61, at least 61 illnesses. 60 of those required hospitalization. Now this was a listeria incident. So this was a listeria outbreak. As we know, listeria can be very deadly. It often, you know, when we see outbreaks with this sends a lot of people to the hospital. So there were likely more people sick. But we saw at least 61 illnesses that were identified through testing. Now this investigation is closed. CDC closed it on November 21st. But I think one of the things that hit the food safety community and certainly consumers and the regulatory community the hardest about this outbreak was what was discovered at the production plant after this outbreak, you know, occurred and people started getting ill. So the Jarrett, Virginia plant was the source of the contaminated deli meats that were produced. And oh, and by the way, Boris had, as a result, you know, recalled more than 7 million pounds of products associated with this. So there's also a giant recall associated with this, including 71 other deli meats. So not just the liverwurst, all the product that was basically produced at this plant, but what was revealed was that there's a two year history of problems at this plant. Virginia and USDA inspectors had documented things like, you know, leaky pipes, insects, blood pooling on the floor, there was mold on the walls, there was meat residue on food contact surfaces. These were in the inspection reports. The non compliance reports also don't mention swab tests for listeria. So that's another problem there. I think when, when people started reading about what had been documented in these reports, it was asked, why wasn't this plant, you know, closed down or shut down sooner? And certainly those are, those are really good questions. Now we had a very interesting article in our December January E Magazine that was written by Dr. Kathy Glass and Dr. Wendy Bedale of the University of Wisconsin Madison, and also Dr. Daniel Unruh, Iowa State University. And one thing that they wrote in that article, it sounds a little bit like a caveat, but I think it was, I think it was kind of interesting. They, they wrote this about the need to reformulate deli meats in light of listeria outbreak caused by Boar's Head. So in this article they wrote, given the plant's history, and we're talking about the Jarrett, Virginia plant here from Boar's Head. So given the plant's history of repeated sanitation failures, it may have been inevitable that Listeria monocytogenes established itself in the facility and, and evaded detection, therefore preventing corrective actions to Eliminate it from the equipment and environment. So I think that's just kind of an interesting perspective to look at. Also in this situation. It seems that there was so much going on at this plant, it was a bit beyond saving. But that, of course, shocking. No excuse for what happened.

[D]

Speaking of the boar's head listeria outbreak, I actually, just before we hopped on recording, finished writing a article that is kind of the culmination of all of this. Some pretty big changes are coming to usda FSIS regulatory oversight of their inspections and to the listeria rule. Although they didn't name boar's head as the reason for these changes, they did mention a very significant listeria outbreak. And we do know that USDA launched an internal investigation because of this listeria outbreak. And some of the changes that they've been made directly correlate to specific questions that Congress has asked USDA to answer in regards to listeria rule and the oversight of inspections, especially the state, federal cooperative inspecting inspection agreements. So USDA is, because of this, it seems to be making some pretty big changes. So that was just, you know, off the top of my head. I literally just finished writing about this, so that's fresh on the mind.

[A]

Well, it's glad to see. It's good to see that there are things starting to roll out as a result of this. Extremely. I, I Shocking.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

One of the specific things that Congress asked about was the listeria rule. And effective in January, FSIS is going to broaden listeria species testing to all samples of ready to eat product, environmental samples and food contact surface samples. They're currently tested for Listeria monocytogenes, but the agency thinks that by expanding the testing to all Listeria species, it will help provide more information about the effectiveness of facility sanitation program and it can help signal to FSIS if some follow up is necessary. They're also going to make some major training enhancements and you know, make the clarity and dissemination of their instructions to inspectors a lot more clear. And they're also going to create stronger state inspection models. They're really going to start looking at those federal state cooperative inspection programs. So.

[A]

And those are the AFTO programs, right, where they're the, they're state inspectors that are going in, right?

[C]

Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

Kind of feels a little bit like them, I hate to say it, throwing them under the bus a little bit.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

The, I know that the, the Jarrett plant was a inspected by Virginia inspectors. So that was one of the big things that people were pointing at as to like why, where was the disconnect there.

[B]

If I could make two quick points about this. One is it's hard to find anything that went well on this case that was done right.

[A]

So it's systemic failure.

[B]

Absolutely. So this one's going to become a textbook case, particularly because of what happened, what was found and, and then also the impact from it. I mean, this is going to change. As Bailey saying as of today, it's changing legislation, it's changing FSIS procedures, it's going to change the state inspection procedures. So this one, like I said, is going to be a textbook case that's going to be studied for a long time. The second thing I'm going to make is we talk a lot about technology and how it's changing the investigation of these outbreaks. One of the technologies that I think is part of this that doesn't get enough attention. We talk about whole genome sequence and we talk about analytical testing, but also being able to detect who gets ill and whether or not we can trace it back to something. The issues that they had here with the presence of listeria and the inspections and the blood on the floor and all the stuff that Adrian talked about before have been going on for at least two years. I have no evidence to say this, but I'm going to say it anyway. I don't believe that what we know happened is the only thing that happened. People were probably getting ill in the past, never reporting it. We know that 90% of foodborne illnesses don't go reported and people don't get test at the hospital. They don't get them to the public health agencies. Several years before, several years ago, you were probably where pulsenet was really getting a high population of samples. But I find it hard to believe that, that we're seeing everything that happened here. And I believe that people probably got ill two years ago, but we just never uncovered it. Being able to do that is revolutionizing food safety and being able to get those patient samples and match them back up with causative samples from the plant. This is one of the things that's, that's going to revolutionize everything that we're seeing.

[A]

We're still taught, we're still not talking about prevention though.

[B]

No, but, but, but that's the other thing why this is going to become a textbook case is, you know, this reminds me when, when you talk about the conditions at the plant and I can only comment on what I've read publicly, but when Peanut Corporation of America came out was, you know, more than a little bit more than a decade ago, they had Holes in the ceiling and stuff dripping through it was egregious. This sounds like the same description. It sounds like the same description. So the idea that this is just happening now, being able to find this, what Bailey said about the USDA inspecting or testing for Listeria species, you get a little bit broader look. You could get a negative test for El Mono, but still have species, which means the, the conditions are right for growing Listeria and you can do more about it. If those things are corrected, then this will be the silver lining of this problem. But again, I think this is not something that just happened and was discovered. I think it's been happening for some.

[D]

Time and the changes aren't done either. These are just like the immediate, immediate changes that USDA wants to implement. Based on the their investigation so far, I know that they are putting together a special committee on the NAKMIF team to address Listeria and they said that that will probably inform future policy updates with regards to the Listeria rule. So this is just, I think the beginning. So I'm going to keep a close eye on this for news coverage. And the updates that USDA made were pretty extensive. So I would encourage anyone interested in the specifics, if you haven't already by the time this episode comes out, to look in the description for the link to that to get more information.

[C]

So this was one, this was kind of the, one of the things that we started seeing that really started to set off this string of high profile foodborne illness outbreaks. One of the next ones we saw that really rang throughout, you know, the consumer and food safety community was the McDonald's Quarter Pounders E. Coli O157:H7 outbreak that was ultimately linked to yellow onions from Taylor Farms. So CDC started this investigation in late October. There was a string of illnesses reported in, I believe it was the west and Midwest states after from people who had consumed McDonald's Quarter Pounders. So of course, you know, the first thing was, well, let's make sure the beef is okay. So there's a lot of beef testing, no E. Coli found in the beef. So then they started, you know, looking also, well, concurrently at the same time looking at the different ingredients. So the Quarter Pounders apparently had a type of slivered onion that is pretty much only served on those burgers, as I understand that product. And so that was found to be the thing that was causing people to become ill. And that was isolated as a source. They traced it back to Taylor Farms Colorado Springs, Colorado facility. And so FDA and CDC were able to Trace the source of the onions back there. So of the victims who became ill from this outbreak, 34. Well, at least 104 people were infected with E. Coli, 34 were hospitalized. Four people developed hemolytic uremic syndrome, and one person who was not one of the HUS patients died. So this was again, another incident where we unfortunately saw a fatality. And, you know, another thing we saw with this outbreak was that other national restaurant chains pulled yellow onions from their menus out of caution. And Taylor Farms did also initiate a voluntary recall after FDA confirmed its Colorado Springs facility. And, you know, I think one of the interesting things that we saw with this outbreak and the. The associated recall was that things seemed, at least from my point of view, things seemed to move pretty fast. We were. I mean, I know Bailey was writing a new story with new information, new information from the cdc, new information from the fd, new results every day, which was great for our website hits, but, you know, and I mean, I think when you have a company as big as McDonald's and, you know, supplier as big as Taylor Farms, the traceability, the. The cape. The traceability capabilities on. Along the supply chain there are. They have to be good so that you are able to quickly pinpoint what is going on in a situation like this and stop the source of the, you know, the food that is making people sick. So I feel like, you know, from the time that people started getting sick and those illnesses were identified, you know, via testing, to when the onions were identified from this, from the Taylor. Taylor Farms Colorado Springs facility, it was. I mean, it was a matter of like a week or a little. Little over a week. I mean, it was very fast. So that was interesting to see in this particular scenario.

[D]

Yeah, I remember it was moving so quickly. Like, one day I woke up and there wasn't even an official announcement from FDA or CDC implicating Taylor Farms yet. But I was reading all this coverage about how other restaurants were pulling their onions because they got them from Taylor Farms. And I had to, you know, you know, quick get that together. And then, you know, right after I got that out, it. FDA and CDC came out with their statements about it being Taylor Farm. So I had to go back and, you know, be like, okay, now we have the confirmation. So it was moving so quickly that it, you know, I was. I was moving. I was, you know, had to sometimes go back and change things within the same day. So it was, yes, a lot, A lot.

[A]

And on the one hand you would say, well, that, you know, as a consumer, you Know that's good. As a food safety professional, you might even say, well, good it was caught soon they were able to get. But I even sitting over here, again, you know, not a food safety professional, the, the lack of an understanding of a root cause. It's been closed since December 3rd and we don't know what happened. We don't know why this happened. Very unsatisfying to me and I would imagine to consumers as well. So kind of there's a thread that rolls all through this about consumer trust and what are consumers to be left to thought, let alone. To think, let alone all the people within industry who are trying to figure out what are the best ways, what technologies can we implement before to prevent. That's what FISMA was all about moving from, you know, moving to prevention. And I, I'm not sure that we've really made that leap yet. I mean all this data would indicate we haven't. Oh, there was a little bit of celebration, a little premature during the pandemic of oh yes, they're down. Well, they're down because people weren't going to the hospital and, and cases, you know, weren't being, you know, investigated or even known. So anyway, that's, you know, the root cause thing on this and not knowing why and the absolute just horrific nature of what came to light. I mean, we're all shocked. Imagine how shocking for just consumers. You know what, I thought this was being hand. I thought we were better than this.

[B]

I would guess that a lot of consumers think this is closed because it's been issued as closed. But I could not agree with you more. One of the comments I put to address is this one's also going to be a textbook example because it has not been solved. We talk about whole genome sequencing and how powerful it is and I think it's one of the most amazing technologies to come to food safety in a really long time. But it's not a panacea. They did not find matching strains.

[A]

And we're not actually prevent illness.

[B]

Right? It's. Well, yes, it could. Yeah. Well, it's preventative in the same way that we just talked about a second ago that if you can find the root cause and then fix those, those causative issues, then it will prevent future illness better than we've had in the past. But it is a. An investigation tool that helps you solve these things, but it's not preventative to keep them from happening in the first place. No question about that.

[A]

Well, I'm sure that it is being used for, for on Samples and being tracked. You know, they are, you know, let's quote John Butts, Dr. John Butts, you know, seek and destroy. There is listeria and other pathogens, you know, being sought out and destroyed in plants, definitely and probably more than ever before. I don't know. That's me just making it. That's just editorializing, but I can't imagine that it's not.

[B]

Yeah, I think the other piece I would add to this, and because they said that they solved this mainly through epidemiological data, what I take the mean from that is when you look at some of the reports that came out of cdc, they did interviews with people who had gotten ill and asked them where they ate. And we know from previous interviews that we've had here on the podcast with people from CDC who do these investigations, that one of the things they look at is shopper cards or you're buying procedures. So these people may not have all remembered that they had McDonald's Quarter Pounder until they looked at their ATM. They. They looked at their debit card and they said, well, you ate at McDonald's last Tuesday. Oh, that's right, I had a Quarter Pounder. But without that evidence, which, you know, has really not been available or publicly available to the CDC for a long time, most of these things wouldn't be linked that way, too. So all of these kind of database technologies and the things that the CDC are putting together all work together. And in this case, we're not sure that the whole genome sequencing was the thing that really closed it, but it was the interviews and being able to find out exactly what people ate over the last couple weeks and being able to get the patient samples, which traditionally have not been taken and analyzed. So being able to find those things and knowing at least getting a close idea of what happened, but not sure that helped to at least put the pieces together, but it wasn't enough to close all the loops. So this one's also going to be an interesting one. When we have debates about whole genome sequencing not being a complete panacea, in this case it wasn't. So we need to keep that in mind.

[D]

Yeah, it was definitely, really, it was the most read issue of the year among our readers. So I know that our audience on social media had all the same questions that we're talking about now, like, why can't we find the strain? Where is the root cause? And we had, in just two of the eight articles or so that I wrote on this, over 11,000 hits, which is a lot. And we talked about it in our first Food Safety 5 video that also exceeded our expectations. So people were really, really interested in this obviously concerning topic. We had some of our best performing social media posts ever. I mean, people were just really going, you know, having very engaged discussions. We reached 60,000 people with just our most popular posts on the topic. So it's definitely something that all the food safety professionals out there were really concerned about and asking some of the same questions that you were putting forth, Bob. And also people beyond the. Our food safety professional audience, consumers, which.

[A]

Is a huge story.

[D]

I mean, I know that they brought.

[A]

Out all the experts. I don't mean to cut you off, Bailey, but they brought out all the experts. I mean, every article had two or three food safety experts, experts, you know, quoted and so on. And then of course, because of the high profile of McDonald's, Taylor Farms and the trusted brand of Boar's Head, you know, people were like, what? Right, It's a premium brand.

[D]

I thought Boar's Head was going to close out the year as our most hot topic. And then, you know, McDonald's followed right behind it and it was just like, when it rains, it pours, I guess.

[A]

And we didn't talk about the fact too that during the wars had, you know, they've now formed a food safety council, they've brought out experts. Frankianas is now the, what is it? Interim.

[D]

He's actually chief safety officer or something to that.

[A]

This is one of the notes that I made for myself that I've officially lost. So I don't know, I had too many notes. I'm a little, I'm still digging through my stuff to find it. But very high profile group of individuals. But to me now, I mean, I know that, I know that this happened with Chipotle and that they fared very well considering the ongoing nature of their problems. And they've done all the right things. They've recovered their reputation, they've recovered their market share and then some. I mean, they've done an amazing job. But I still would like to see more companies with more high profile boards like this before, you know, an onslaught. Now that's not to say that people don't have boards or have food safety people on their, you know, adjunct boards and so on, but they could be more high profile and I don't know, I guess we'll see. I guess consumers expect it in the wake of a tragedy but don't want to see it before. So it's still very confusing to me as far as consumer behavior on the reactions to high Profile cases like this?

[C]

Well, I don't think they look for it before, but they certainly expect to see it after.

[A]

That's a problem, right? That people, when I've asked people about consumers, they say, yeah, they assume the food is safe. But as we've seen through that horrible Gallup poll that came out during the summer, more and more people don't believe their food is safe. And you know, so I think that there are a lot of factors on that. They don't believe the government's helping them. I think there's a lot of red tape on that. There's also a lot of beating up about, you know, agencies and so on. I think some of that is earned and some of that is driven. So, you know, I don't know. That one's hard to figure out.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, it is. And you know, kind of, you know, rounding out this topic of these high profile fatal foodborne illness outbreaks, we saw a couple more outbreaks the last couple of months of the year. We saw an E. Coli, another E. Coli issue with carrots, bagged carrots from Grimway Farms, it's California based company, they did a volunteer. Yeah, they did a voluntary recall too. Now they, their carrots went to all sorts of different brands and many, many different retailers all across the US And Canada. So the recall was pretty expansive. Canada initiated their, their own recall as.

[A]

Well.

[C]

Of the carrots. But this was bagged, organic, whole and baby carrots. And this was an E. Coli O1,2 1H19 outbreak began in November right over the Thanksgiving holiday here in the US it's still considered to be ongoing. The investigation as of the time of this recording in mid December according to the fda. Also some of the carrots were distributed internationally to Colombia, Hong Kong and the uae, also Puerto Rico. So those countries have been notified as well. There was one death associated with this, 39 illnesses, at least 15 hospitalizations. Then we also saw another going back to listeria. We saw a listeria outbreak associated with Yushang food and basically ready to eat meat and poultry products of this company based in South Carolina. So as of December 7, we see 19 people in five states are sick, 17 of whom have been hospitalized again with listeria. See that high hospitalization rate. Two women have lost pregnancies due to listeriosis, bringing the fatality count in this outbreak to 2. And then FSIS also confirmed the presence of listeria in October. At the end of October, through routine testing of the plant where these products were produced that linked the outbreak strain to the products. So we have that match there. Yushang food recalled over 72,000 pounds of the ready to eat meat and poultry products in response. And then another interesting thing that we saw was that isolates from the patients in this outbreak are closely genetically related to Listeria strains that have been collected in PulseNet since December of 2023, which could indicate resident contamination in the facility. So that was another aspect to this case that I think is, you know, kind of ongoing in the investigation as well.

[B]

This, I think, is another example of the ability of analytical tests to be able to detect things like that. But only with the database do you find the link back through PulseNet. Otherwise you'd never know what happened in the past. And I'll say the same thing I said before is my suspicion in my editorial comment, nothing more, is if these were resident in the facility in the past, they were probably affecting things being made in that facility in the past. But. But it's difficult to trace that back, but we have more ability to do that now than ever. So again, I think this is something that is coming to light that never could before because of the technology that's available, but that enables us to make these things better.

[C]

And one more interesting thing we saw just kind of on the topic of recalls related to microbial contamination and pathogenic bacteria, there was a big study that was published earlier in the year in the Journal of Food Protection. And that study looked at FDA data over the past 20 years and 35,000 different product recalls that happened between 2002 and the middle of 2023. And that study found that listeria and salmonella together accounted for 40% of all those product recalls. So that was pretty staggering statistics. And then Also allergens represented 28% of recalls. We know allergens often represent a pretty big percentage as well, but listeria, salmonella identified as big, you know, causes of recall. So that was interesting study, especially when you're looking at that. That long of a time period of 20 years of data. Another interesting thing that we looked at, you know, as far as technology and looking at, you know, what can. Where is technology taking with. Taking us with the ability to detect, investigate, analyze foodborne illnesses was an interesting webinar that I'm sure many of you attended back in July, and Bob led this as a moderator. But this discussion was really interesting. We had industry and FDA experts in microbiology and food safety, and we talked all about the rapid development of technology and how that's revolutionized food safety and also how this could benefit food safety programs in the future. We had some really high profile, nice speakers on for that webinar. But it was very interesting and well attended webinar and I think it asked a lot of important questions. You know, I mean, how do the links established by whole genome sequencing and, you know, improvements that we're seeing in pathogen testing, you know, contribute to and change the way we investigate foodborne illness outbreaks? And you know, Bob, one of the things that you guys discussed in the webinar is we're linking more patient cases to food contamination events than ever before. And that can make it look like there's more outbreaks happening than there were previously. Which again, kind of speaks to what we're seeing in the headlines recently in the mass media related to some of these high profile outbreaks that have been happening. Are there more foodborne illness outbreaks? But it's like, what promises do these technologies and other advances hold for the future? And also what challenges or limitations do you do they have? You know, and so, I mean, I think when you look back on everything that we've just reviewed with, you know, as far as what we've seen with some of these outbreaks and the circumstances surrounding them and the recalls that came from them, and then how, how we're using technology to link patient cases to contamination incidents, I think it brings up a lot of interesting questions about, you know, like, what are these outbreaks that we're seeing, what are they showing us and what tools do we have to improve on what we're seeing? Like, where do we go from here?

[A]

It was a great webinar and it will be available for a year. So that was in July. So you can watch, you can download that and watch it for free. You don't have to download it, you can just watch. It won't take any computer space. You can watch that for free via our website, food-safety.com, check out the webinar tab on that. But I think, Bob, there was a lot of discussion in that webinar on using technology within the plants to detect resident strains and things like that. I mean, right now we're not seeing so more incidences that we're seeing. So we say, oh well, we're seeing more because we're able to trace back some things. We're not seeing a reduction yet in recalls or events or outbreaks, but hopefully over time we'll start to see these things start to come down.

[B]

Yeah, I would hope so. And I think some of this, like you said, is the ability to see more, but people actually have to use the technology as well, you know, why do you have resident Listeria in your plant? You don't know about it. If you've ever had Listeria in the plant before, or you have a plant that has the characteristics, temperature and things like that that are good for growth Listeria, you're going to have it at some point, so you should look for it. I like the experts who say, don't test until you get results, but test until you find it, because it's going to be there. And those are the types of things that you should really look at. So when you go out to the plant, you do environmental monitoring and you get negatives, that's not necessarily a good thing. One of the things we just spoke about a second ago is USDA is changing to using Listeria species versus just El mono. You could get negative El mono. It means that you don't have it, particularly in that sample or that day, but if you have Listeria in the plant, you're going to have El mono at some point with some probability. So I like this idea of don't test until you get negatives, but test until you find it. And if you don't find it, test someplace else, but keep going. The other thing I can't help mentioning is that there's a bit of a, and I'm going to call it an AI revolution. I don't mean that it's really artificial intelligence, but it's all these technologies coming together. You have Pulse Net and, and genometracker as the databases that are housing all these sequences. So like Adrian just said, you can look back a couple of years and see if this was in the plant years ago or if it was seen someplace or seen in patients years ago. You have databases like shopper cards that look at what people bought and what they had, what they ate. If I asked most people, what did you eat for the last two weeks, most people aren't going to get it. Right. But if I look at your shopper card and what you bought, maybe that'll refresh your memory. We can actually find out the foods that you ate that made you ill. Hospitals seem to be more attuned to getting patient samples so that you can get them into the PulseNet database so that they can be linked to the plant databases in the genome tracker. All those pieces come together, and that's what makes this so powerful. If I have an analytical result and I have a gene sequence, a sequence that doesn't necessarily do me any good unless I know where it came from or where the food was or did it make somebody ill? And if somebody is ill and doesn't get tested or the hospital doesn't test them, that doesn't do us any good because, you know, hopefully they, they recover. But it doesn't help us get back to the root cause. But all these things together become a really powerful tool that help the right people get to the root cause. And I think that's really what's going to change anything is all this together.

[A]

Well, so here we are, gang. I don't even know how far in we are, but we've covered basically one story which are all of our high profile outbreaks this year. Obviously big stuff here. We told you it was going to be a big episode. So we're going to do what we can to try and run through the rest. But it's a big year. It's a lot with a lot of implications and fast breaking news. So here we go. Adrian.

[C]

Yeah, so another big topic that was kind of a continuation of 2023. 3. We, we also talked about this on our Year in Review podcast. But you know, the restructuring of the Human Foods program, which has been a long time coming.

[A]

It's the years in review.

[C]

Yeah. Reviewing several years of content here. But, but you know, so this, this was the year that FDA put its newly reorganized Human Foods program into operation. And that happened on October 1, was the official restructure date. And we saw the establishment of new departments, new initiatives and new processes to tackle food safety challenges. And it's kind of interesting, on the first day on October 1st, FDA introduced a streamlined process for processing consumer and whistleblower complaints about foods and dietary supplements. So that was nice to see as like kind of a, you know, the new Human Foods program is here. We're going to make it easier for you to communicate with us. That was their first thing that they rolled out. Now in late October, FDA published a list of priority work for fiscal year 2025. And there's three program areas that the new Human Foods program is really focusing on. Microbiological food safety, food chemical safety, and nutrition. So there's a bunch of different work areas and different, you know, pieces of legislation and whatnot and rules and guidances that FDA is focusing on, wants to focus on in 2025. You know, I'll just hit a few top line items. The pre harvest ag water rule, the implementation plan for that, supporting obviously the implementation of FSMA 204. We know that's coming up. That's a big one. Issuing final guidance for the produce Safety rule and then you know, reviewing FDA's pre market review processes for food and color additives, that's been on a lot of people's mind. It's been a lot of discussions around that and including food contact substances and grass substances and then redesigning FDA's framework for post market assessment of chemicals in food. And that's all based on stakeholder feedback, which they've been very, you know, vocal and soliciting. So that's a big one as well. And then, you know, kind of looking at the closer to zero continuing initiative, issuing guidances on action levels for environmental contaminants and then lead in foods for infants and young children and then that continuation of increasing the resiliency of the US Infant formula market, which as we know is kind of the thing that spurred the whole reorganization of the Human Foods program. So that's a continuing project as well. So, you know, FDA hopes to continue this work through fiscal year 2025 to fully operationalize the Human Foods program. That'll include establishing permanent leadership for the various offices. And then once you've got that leadership in place, they're going to establish a multi year strategic plan. Now I think it is, it's worth mentioning that we know we have an upcoming change in administration in 2025 and we know we're probably going to have an appointed change in oversight of the Department of Health and Human Services under which FDA falls to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. So I think that that raises a lot of questions and it remains to be seen how much of FDA's stated work plans will be realized in the coming years and also what form they may take or may not materialize. So I think we have some uncertainty. That always happens when you have a change in administration. And so we're going to be, I guess, you know, kind of waiting to see if things fall, fall into place as planned with the announcements that FDA has put out, you know, post reorg here.

[D]

Yeah, even I know prior to the election and we, you know, prior to knowing that we're going to have an administrative change, FDA's human foods leadership, Jim Jones, he's been really transparent about the fact that they're going to do as much as they can with the resources they have. As it is, the budget constraints are a really big concern that in the different webinars I've been attending, Mr. Jones has been repeating the chemical reassessment work is especially what the public expects is a lot more than what the resources they have might allow them. Mr. Jones reiterated this in a Senate committee hearing earlier in December, when he was being specifically asked about red dye 3, what FDA is doing to address these contaminants in our food. And he said, he and Robert Califf both said, look, we've asked for money to fulfill our work. So it's just all up in the air.

[A]

It is. And there was another thing that was noted, and this ties back to boots on the ground, the state partners. There was money that was allocated. There was some resource money that had been sort of. There was some extra money that was then assigned to the AFTO partners that's now going to be off the table. And this, this was a part of a pretty lively discussion between Jim Jones. Very respectful. Lively and respectful between Jim Jones and Steve Monroch of afto, you know, about their need, because that's essentially going to wind up being a cut. So while a lot of things have remained stagnant, I heard, I read a quote from Caleb saying that it was liter for 30 years, that this really will wind up being a cut. And these are the people that are being tasked with getting into the plants and doing the FDA's work on site. You guys have referred to the question mark. I have taken out the largest Sharpie that I own. I'm waving it around for my cohorts here. And I'm putting a big question mark on all of this because I don't. In my mind, it can't be overstated, the uncertainty that we're facing. There are just so many different factions and things that may or may not happen or plans or who wants to plan for what, or who wants to remake and destroy and pull. Who knows? So I guess we'll wait and see. I mean, I do have a certain amount of confidence. It's going to take a while, but we really just don't know. And that uncertainty is hard if your.

[B]

Goal is status quo with what the FDA has been doing. I think you're right. I think you're going to be disappointed because it's not going to be exactly the same. But if you're. If your goal is to have more activity in the fda, I think the human foods program is going to be very, very busy. If we guess on what people are looking at, I think that they will probably ramp up some of the inspections. But also I think you're going to see a lot more focus on. And we'll talk about this in a minute, I think, but cost money, additives and things like that, and depending upon where that goes, but I think this program is going to get a tremendous amount of attention but just maybe different attention. The other thing I'll mention real quickly is people talked for years about the Human Foods Program. And I'm going to joke a little bit that we kind of said that we were going to change topics. But the Human Foods Program got the impetus to become the Human Foods Program because of the infant formula outbreak. So these outbreaks are driving the change. I think it's the right change. But, you know, these are. This is another textbook case where this really drove changes in how we're regulating food because of an outbreak.

[C]

Yeah. Well, Bob, you mentioned, you know, how outbreaks, you know, in this case, like the infant formula with the chronobacter that we saw a few years ago are driving things like the reorganization of the Human Foods Program. So another topic that we tracked this year and that we have seen a lot of interest in and that we are continuing to see increasing interest in, is an outbreak that is also affecting food safety concerns. But this is an outbreak that is in animals, not in food necessarily. Although the reason we're worried about it from our angle is primarily because of the possibility for it to be in food. So with that very vague explanation, let me dive into it. So, you know, what we're talking about. This is the avian flu outbreak. And, you know, public health agencies and agricultural departments are closely following the spread of the highly pathogenic avian influenza, or HPAI, and that's H5N1 subtype, from birds to dairy herds. And then we've also seen it move into cats, other mammals, and now pigs, which is not good. The HPAI epidemic has, you know, it's hit the poultry industry hard. We've seen more than 95 million birds culled since February of 2022. But I think one of the bigger things we focused on this year and that we have seen a lot of concern in the food safety community is about the spread of the virus from birds to dairy cattle and, you know, the possibility for the virus to emerge in dairy foods and also in beef cat cattle. So the USDA began requiring testing and mandatory reporting of test results for dairy cattle. Way back in April, herds across the US Were found to be infected with avian flu. There were, or actually as of December 2,689 herds across 15 states, with the most of those in California. And that data, data is according to USDA aphis. So the virus has also been detected in raw milk. FDA and CDC continue to advise against consumption of raw milk. But, you know, we see some raw milk truthers. I'm putting that in air Quotes that you can't see. And state laws allowing raw dairy remain a challenge in maintaining food safety. We know the pasteurization is safe, though. FDA has conducted several rounds of tests that prove pasteurization of milk and dairy products inactivated the virus and ensured that food is safe for consumption. And actually right now, USDA APHIS is also conducting milk testing to better pinpoint which states in specific dairy herds are affected. So we're seeing a lot of milk testing, but everything, all the test results that have returned says as long as it's pasteurized, you're good to go. Now, I mentioned beef cattle before. The virus has also been found in beef cattle, but USDA tests earlier in the year showed that cooking beef patties to well done will kill the HPAI AI virus. I don't think I've seen a whole lot of discussion on this other than other than that. So I guess it's not a big concern about, about beef, you know, beef cattle at this point. Now, I guess, you know, kind of venturing just a little bit into the public health aspect of this. Some human cases have been reported and most of those are affiliated with animal exposures such as farm workers, dairy workers, poultry workers. At least one case, though, doesn't have an animal or food exposure point, which is concerning. You know, I think looking at the public health and medical aspect of the scientists and public health experts are worried that the virus could mutate, become more effective at spreading among species, or gain the ability for easy human to human transmission. So, you know, although the risk right now of avian flu to the public is currently deemed low. You know, avian flu has been deadly in the past when it's arisen in humans. And so I think health officials are being very cautious about a pandemic level event. I know the CDC is developing H5N1 vaccines as a precaution. And you know, of course food safety ties into all this because we need to keep testing to make sure that the food supply is safe. But things like, you know, people who demand the right to drink raw milk, could that help spread avian flu if it crops up in raw milk? We've already seen plenty of recalls recently for, well, not plenty. We have seen a few recalls recently for avian flu in raw milk. I just saw a new one the other day. So, you know, I guess the question for food safety with this is ultimately, you know, how can the agriculture, dairy and food processing sectors work with regulators and public health specialists to ensure that the food supply remains safe and that that's not a source of avian flu infection.

[A]

Well, and this is where, and I know Bob's going to have a lot to say, but this is where you have a lot of these conflicting things going on. Right. With Robert F. Kennedy Jr. S appointment as Secretary of Health and Human Services, a proponent of raw milk. Like what, how does that, is that going to trickle down? He's also an anti vaxxer. So CDC working on a potential vaccine. You know, when ideologies and public health collide. Right. I don't, it's just again, the big question mark. I don't know how these things are going to, you know, does that ideology translate into trying to change an overhaul, you know, the way that we are currently protecting public health? I don't, you know, again, question mark.

[B]

One thing I'll add maybe as a comforting point is number one is the USDA certainly has a role in milk regulation. They certainly have a role in the technical aspects of the things we're talking about, about following the virus. But most milk regulations are on a state level. So actually Health and Human Services, he's going to have quite a role as you know, the bully pulpit sort of the things that he'll say. But most mil transactions are regulated at the state level, so those things should stay pretty stable for a long time. The two things with this that concern me is, you know, food safety is ultimately also about food. And if this continues to spread among poultry and ultimately around cattle, there could be significant shortages of, of food, poultry, beef, eggs, things like that. And so that could be a real problem for a lot of, of companies, the employers of our listeners, people like that. If you're in food safety, it could be a real issue. The other thing is human to human transmission. I will say I'm not completely up to speed and I don't know who is on what happens with the virus in a food transmission. If you eat something that has the virus, if that causes you to get the virus or if it caused you to cause the kind of eye infections that we've seen, but not human to human transition transmission. But if the virus were to mutate so that it is able to do human, human transmission, I think that's where we have another bigger piece of this problem. So that's, that's the thing I'm keeping my eye on.

[C]

Yeah, absolutely. And we'll of course be continuing to watch this story from the food safety angle and you will be able to check back with food safety magazine, food food-safety.com for more coverage on this. More great coverage from Bailey So another topic that we've been following this year, and we know that you have too, is usda, and it's been working hard to revise its Salmonella framework for raw poultry products. And it recently extended the comment period on that framework to January 17, following two public meetings that were held in early December where stakeholders got to give their say. Now, this framework was originally introduced in a draft form in October of 2022. So we've been talking about this for a while. And the revised draft framework was released this August that took into account scientific advice from the National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods and public comments on that original draft framework. So the revised framework would require a number of changes for poultry producers to help eradicate Salmonella serotypes in their products. And these serotypes that are responsible for the majority of human salmonellosis cases focuses on five serotypes of public health significance and sets an enforceable final product standard for Salmonella above 10 CFU per gram of product or any detectable level one of the five serotypes of significance. And at that point Salmonella is deemed to be an adulterant. The framework also requires routine Salmonella sampling, verification, testing and monitoring by industry. Now, one thing that differs from the draft frame, the original draft framework in this revised framework is that incoming flocks won't need to be tested for Salmonella. And that's upon advice from nacmif. So some in industry say that the proposed rule goes too far, while consumer activist groups would rather see all Salmonella serotypes classified as adulterants in poultry products. So some in industry say that the proposed rule goes too far, while consumer activist groups would rather see all Salmonella serotypes types classified as adulterants in poultry products. Now for kind of an inside look at the revised framework, we talked to Dr. Emilio Esteban and Sandra Eskin, the US undersecretary and deputy undersecretary for USDA FSIS, on the podcast back in October to find out more about the science behind the revised framework and how it's designed to improve public health, especially trying to meet that Healthy People 2030 target of reducing 25% of the salmonellosis cases that we typically experience in a year. So Dr. Esteban and Sandra stressed that the ultimate goal of the framework is to reduce Salmonella illnesses from poultry. They also noted that the Salmonella serotypes of significance are likely to evolve over time and that FSIS plans to reevaluate these serotypes every three to five years or whenever new information becomes available. So there's some flexibility in the revised framework. If the stereotypes of significance that they've outlined, those five serotypes change, or if new information becomes available, then producers will have. Poultry producers will have different targets that they need to be testing for, watching out for. So that review is obviously kind of a simplification of the revised framework. It's, it's much more complex when you actually read through the whole thing. But, you know, we've been talking about this for a while, as I said, you know, since October of 2022 when it was originally introduced. You know, in the, in the meantime, we saw USDA put in place a rule back in of this year that declares salmonella an adulterant, all salmonella in breaded stuffed raw chicken products at 1 CFU per gram. So that rule went into effect. And I guess the overarching question, you know, with, you know, seeing that that rule went into effect and that we are, I think USDA is hoping that this revised framework will go into effect, you know, hopefully next year. Will these efforts make a difference to public health and also what impacts will they have on industry? Because there's been a lot of talk about that. So those are kind of the questions that I think are hovering in the air above this.

[A]

Well, I just want to say for our listeners, if you didn't listen to that bonus episode, it posted on October 1st. And thank you again to Dr. Esteban and to Sandra Eskin for a great interview for helping us keep our audience informed. It really is a nice interview, Adrian. It gets into a lot of the points. It's just, it's really well done. And the comment period is open until January 17th. So you guys still have time to listen to that, get all your notes together and, and make your comments before that period closes. So some pretty big, pretty big issues here, I gotta tell you.

[B]

Dang. All these stories are linked together. Adrian, what'd you say before that? The study showed that 40% of recalls were caused by salmonella or list. And we know what's the other statistic that the incidence of salmonella positive test and food have been going down, but the incidence of illnesses have not. So we've been. We're doing something wrong there. I'll geek out a little bit here because this is going to be fascinating to watch what happens because if there's a way to reduce these pathogenic serotypes and get rid of them, there may be some competition from other ones that we're not monitoring for, in which case the flora will change and you know, that and like, like Sandra Askin said, said that those serotypes may evolve over time, so the battle may change and it's going to be a bit of a moving target. But this is going to be something really interesting to watch unless you can make it Salmonella species.

[C]

So we will obviously continue to follow this as well and you know, we will watch for the end of that comment period closing and then see where USDA FSIS takes it from there. And, and we might see a new framework implemented in 2025.

[A]

And one of the other things that Sandra Eskin talked about too, was that they, for the first time In I think 30 years or more, are reviewing their safe food handling instructions for labels and for a possible redesign project. They've never been redesigned since they were first put into place. And again, all of this and the various stakeholders and consumers being the last one to touch the, the ball, so to speak, so very important that we're making sure that they understand and well clear up all the confusion that we know is out there. And with so many fractured sources of information, it's very hard. So I'll be looking forward to seeing more on those safe handling instructions too.

[C]

Yes, we will too. And you'll of course be able to read about it and food-safety.com so keep an eye out for that. Yeah, yeah. So kind of moving on, you know, to another topic on the regulatory agenda. And you know, no surprise that this was a contin. Another continuing topic, you know, that we talked about in 2023 as well. But you know, when you have something like Fisma 204 compliance that, you know, from the time the traceability rule got announced to, you know, the many years, the, the number of years that that folks had to comply with this, obviously the plans, the preparation, the compliance preparedness is going to be an ongoing thing and it remains a concern for industry. We've seen a lot in industry express concerns about how they're going to do this financially, do this logistically. But we've also seen some really large organizations kind of take the reins and announce that they've got it, it, you know, they've got it sealed down pat. Kroger, Cisco Fresh, Del Monte, they all have their FSMA 204 compliance path set. Some others aren't as far along to aid industry. We have seen the creation of a couple of public, private and industry partnerships that have been formed to assist industry on the path toward compliance with the traceability rule. And that of course, as a reminder, happens in January 2026 so the partnership for Food Traceability as well as the industry led FSMA 204 collaboration were both set up in September. And both of those organizations are dedicated to helping industry standardize and comply with FSMA 204. So, you know, good resources there. I think for folks. FDA continues to provide more educational resources to help industry and in a variety of languages as well. So FDA, you know, continue to check out the FSMA 204 traceability rule page. Tons of resources there for industry. But I think one of the biggest things that we saw this year was in September there was a report and a public meeting that was held by the Reagan Uvald foundation, which, you know, as you remember, they're the ones behind the report that launched the reorganization of the Human Foods program. And this report and public meeting was set to discuss the industry concerns with FSMA 204 compliance. And all these roundtable discussions that the Reagan Udall foundation held with industry uncovered some persistent concerns about meeting FSMA 204 that were related to timing the traceability data elements and also business size and capabilities. A lot of people from industry suggested during these meetings that a staggered approach to compliance should be taken to allow for more information to be exchanged along the supply chain and to implement a full traceability program. There are also a lot of lingering questions about traceability lot codes and key data element record programs and how to set those up. And then, you know, kind of the questions about the strain on labor. The rule requires TLCs, those lot codes and source info to be shared with fda. Industry is saying, you know, if we scan every case of food individually, that's going to take a lot of labor, a lot of equipment, a lot of space. So they propose, can we use something that is more like most likely lot codes or probability calculations to help solve this potential problem. And then, you know, there's also the issue of the industry brought up about, you know, some warehouse management systems aren't capable of capturing these key data element records without major overhauls. Some of those overhauls, the industry said, could take as long as five years and then some. Late stage distributors in the supply chain can carry thousands of different items carried by the rule, and pallets can contain, you know, mixed lots. That adds to the complexity as well. So, you know, we've got a lot of concerns floating around from industry here. And on top of that, we saw some very interesting legislative motions from lawmakers that have introduced bills to delay or weaken the provisions of FSMA 204. You know, it's pretty unclear I think if those will interfere with the rule taking effect in 2026. But a couple things we saw was the Food Traceability Enhancement act that was proposed in June that wanted to ease record keeping and TLC requirements for the retail food service sector. And then there was a provision in the fiscal 2025 AG appropriations bill that wanted to put the FSMA 204 implementation date on hold. And then both of those pieces of legislation would have required that FDA conduct several additional traceability pilot projects, which would have delayed the implementation further. Now, we saw a lot of very vocal opposition to these legislative proposals, including from the Consumer Federation of America's Safe Food Coalition and also from Frank Yannis, one of the architects of FSMA 204. Now, since these bills don't really appear to be going anywhere, it seems likely that the January 2026 compliance deadline is going to remain in effect for FSMA 204. You know, unless of course, there's movement by the incoming presidential administration to delay FSMA 204. But regardless, I think that the Reagan Udall Foundation September report and roundtable discussions do reflect the major ongoing concerns from industry on compliance details. You know, particularly the timing and cost of implementing all these different required tracking elements. So I guess, you know, some of the lingering questions that we're seeing is, you know, where is industry headed with the Fisma 204 compliance? And you know, we're going to help you with this important topic in 2025 because we're going to continue covering it. We're going to be doing a webinar in FISMA 204 readiness in April. We're also going to be having a E Magazine feature on this topic in the same month. And in February before that, we're going to have a webinar on how to conduct a mock recall that'll touch on elements of ensuring traceability as well as other exclusives and features throughout the year.

[A]

Well, and in May, we're going to be kicking off the Food Safety Summit with our opening workshop on traceability that's led by just an an all star panel of professionals couple folks from fda. I'm abbreviating this for Time, but two folks from FDA association folks, National Restaurant association, idfa, fmi, as well as suppliers and other manufacturers. So we're really going to be digging in and that's probably our best well, one of our best attended workshops of the summit. But it's surely to be another blockbuster to get us started on that and will be a big topic, I'm sure, throughout the that's going to be a good one. So the event.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, definitely don't miss that workshop at the summit. So come to the summit just for that workshop. If nothing else.

[A]

Just come to the summit. Yeah, come use your FS. FS matters. 15. Yeah. Save some duckets.

[C]

Yeah, so. So a lot of Questions still about Fisma 204 compliance, but as we've seen some companies, especially some of the larger ones that kind of have to get their stuff in order are doing pretty well with this and then some other ones are saying we need additional help or we have a different idea about how this could maybe go. So I think we've seen a lot of interesting developments on this topic this year.

[A]

Some folks would say that those big guys doing it is more of a competitive play than, than anything else. It's like, okay, match this could be. I thought it was you that said that Bob.

[B]

Maybe that could also be.

[A]

He's being very coy all of a sudden. Now.

[B]

The only thing I would say about FISMA is I don't claim to be up to speed on how everybody, where everybody is right now on implementation of what they're writing for, but I, I like to keep in mind that this is a weak link type system. You can have a lot of big companies and, and some of the companies all ready to go, but if you can't trace it back through all the links, it, it doesn't work. So I, I don't know what the number is. Somebody's smarter than me would know the number. But at some point you have to have 60, 70, 80% compliance before the, the chain will work. So I, I don't know where the, you know, what's the percentage that can be out of sync and have it still work, particularly from international suppliers who last time we did surveys for insights, they were still questioning what they had to do. So again, this is one of these things where it has to be 100% operative or it's not. And that's what I'd be waiting to see.

[C]

So kind of moving on to another kind of big all encompassing topic that I know is one of Bailey's specialties that she has covered a lot in, in her video reports and her God and her, and her news coverage. So food additives legislation and this is a topic of concern for the food safety community, regulators and consumers. We are seeing a lot of coverage by the mass media of this as well. So this is not just among our media and the food safety community, but we've seen continued efforts by a Number of states and legislators to ban additives and chemicals and food. After that, October 2023, passage of the California Food Safety act, that landmark act. And the FDA has also proposed, as we said, that new process for evaluating the post market safety of chemicals in food. So FDA has done things like held public meetings in September to discuss its development of an enhanced systematic process for the post market assessment of chemicals in food. Trying to get public feedback on that, you know, and that includes grass substances, substances used in food, contact materials, color additives, and then unintentionally added chemicals or what you would call environmental contaminants. This review process would be divided into two types, the focus comprehensive basically. One would take longer and require external guidance or advice. One would be a little bit shorter and be conducted entirely within fda. We mentioned earlier also that FDA is also looking at banning Red Dye 3 in the near future. It's interesting to note that Red Dye 3 is not allowed in cosmetics, but it's still allowed for food in the U.S. but it's, it's not allowed in food, for example in the EU, New Zealand or Australia, I believe. So that's interesting. And of course there was that Senate hearing that Bailey talked about in early December on that was trying to examine FDA's effectiveness at ensuring that the US food supply is safe and wholesome. And the chemical side of that was a big part of that conversation. So you know, obviously FDA's kind of food chemical work is coming on the heels of this fast moving wave of state legislation targeting additives and ingredients. Public concern we saw actually back in July, FDA did ban the use of prominated vegetable oil or BVO in food due to negative health effects. That was one, you know, one thing we saw, Canada also banned BVO and foods this year, I think we should mention. And we've also seen a lot of legislation introduced by various states and also, you know, at the congressional level to try to tackle, you know, different contaminants or additives that people don't want in their food. So for example, like bills like the Toxic Free Food act, which was introduced to Congress and intended intends to overhaul FDA's grasp process so that unsafe chemicals or unsafe ingredients can't be allowed into the food supply. We've also seen, you know, since, since the California Food Safety act was passed, we've seen bills introduced in Illinois, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Washington and New York to ban the same or similar chemicals in that California act. And then California itself also banned some artificial colorings in school foods under a new bill called the California State School Food Safety Act. So we've seen a lot of things going on legislatively, patchwork of legislation. Meanwhile, you know, FDA is up here trying to get some things done, funding cuts. It's all very complicated and disjointed, which I think was something that we have, you know, heard people say again and again when they've been talking about this subject. And there's a lot going on here. And I think on the one hand, you can understand the consumer concerns about chemicals and additives in food. And I think we all want to be eating food with additives that don't cause long term harm to our health. We can also see how this patchwork of state legislative efforts to address this faster than the FDA can, can cause issues for industry. And the fda, which is already facing limited funds, as I said, to ensure its work priorities will be carried out. So I think there's a lot of different angles to consider here when we're looking at how bans on food additives that may be unsafe for us can and should and will be accomplished.

[D]

It definitely seems like from my perspective, that FDA is constantly chasing what California is doing and what consumers are demanding. We saw the California Food safety act ban BVO, FDA bans BVO, California bans Red Dye 3 and FDA starts a review of Red Dye 3, also spurred by consumer pressures, which in the Senate hearing that I watched from earlier in December, we might have a decision on in the very near future. But it is definitely interesting to watch how FDA's approach to chemical safety has seemed to be shaped by what's going on at the state level and the consumer level. And I've never seen so much attention paid to chemicals, food chemicals, food additives. Just in my general life, my parents, my siblings, my friends, the general public are talking about these things in ways that we never have seen before. I mean that in, in part, I'm sure due to what we're seeing in the presidential administration as well. There's just a lot of different discussions going on about food additives and food chemicals from many different perspectives. And I think Jim Jones and Commissioner Califf in that Senate hearing were trying to explain, well, it's more complicated than the public understands and then, and Congress even pressuring them to, you know, make decisions. And you mentioned why it's banned in cosmetics, red dye 3, that is, but not in foods. And that was a question posed to FDA during that hearing. And they were trying to explain the nuances of, well, we do have this science that shows carcinogenicity, cancer causing ness in rodents in cosmetics. But the scientific community agrees that this, this the pathway of carcinogenicity isn't applicable to dietary exposure. So that just really complicated complicates what FDA is able to do because they said, they stress this point that if FDA okay, we're going to ban Red Dye 3 but they don't have the scientific evidence to back that decision, it's gonna go to court and they're gonna lose in court because industry has the power to take FDA to court and has the power to overturn decisions. So the burden of evidence is really high. And although FDA is, you know, trying as fast as they can to make these changes in response to consumer demands, their hands are a little bit tied, as we've talked about, because of budgetary constraints and also because when you're looking at EFSA and Canada and all these other places that have a lot more robust postmark chemical reviews, those countries have had those in place for so many more decades than we have because they're mandated by the government. So FDA up until this point, FDA doesn't have a mandate to do these reviews. They are trying to create this post current, post market chemical review process now without the mandate from government or really the financial support. So it was just a really interesting discussion that hearing. There's a lot of nuance to it that I think does. It doesn't really get talked about by the public or by congress people, senators and the administration or industry.

[A]

And I would thank you Bailey because I learned something here. I've been trying. Like I would never say I'm the best googler I am not. I routinely do not find things that I'll turn to somebody, they're like, but what about this? And there's everything you could ever want to know know. But anyway, I did really put a concerted effort in trying to find out why it was that it was not a carcinogen in cosmetics, but not in food. And you've answered my question. So thank you, Bailey Henderson. See, I tried. Good thing I listened to this episode. And also while we're here too, one of our, our most listened to episodes of the year was our January 23rd episode. That episode 162 that featured Brian Sylvester on how the California food Safety act is shaping u. S Food additive regulation. It's garnered the most listens to date. It's a funny thing with podcast episodes is as time goes on, all of them get more. So it's really hard for to me me to say in any kind of definitive fashion this was our biggest of the year because, well, time just keeps moving and you guys keep listening to all of our episodes. So that's fantastic. But definitely one, if this is a topic of interest to you, well worth your time there.

[C]

Yeah, that was a very interesting episode. And I think, you know, like you said, Stacy, that was released in January. But, you know, remembering the con content of that episode, it's still very relevant to kind of where we're at right now. A few more bills have been introduced, but, you know, I think Brian's points in that interview are still very relevant to the place we find ourselves at at the end of 2024 with this. And, you know, I mean, speaking of Red Dye 3, I thought it was. I want to pull out, you know, something during that Senate hearing that Commissioner Califf said, and this is kind of, you know, just, just letting you know where FDA is at. You know, he, he said food dyes are priority. But I want to point out that we have a very small staff for this and we've repeatedly asked for better funding for chemical safety. Please look at our request for funding for the people who do this work. And he also said, and I think this is important, remember, if we ban something so chemical or additive, it will go to court. If we do not have the scientific evidence to support its ban, we will lose in court. So I think that's his way of saying that this is why an extensive review needs to be conducted of a chemical. But states are saying, well, we don't like something, we're going to ban it, we're going to put a law out, we're going to ban it. And that is the state's right and ability to do that. FDA wants to take an approach where they are going to ensure that all the science is compiled and the research is done before they put a, a federal nationwide ban on a chemical. So I think that's some of the discrepancy we're seeing here and some of the different abilities as far as timeline and aggressiveness that you can go with these things. But kind of moving on, you know, to a, to a related topic, you know, what's in your food. So we've also seen growing concerns from, you know, consumers and I think the food safety community like, about environmental and chemical contamination, contaminants in food. So, you know, lawmakers, activist groups, consumers, consumer groups, they all want to know more about what is in the food supply. And this, this we've seen internationally, you know, we've seen a lot of movement on this, both in the US and the eu. So that was interesting as well. So when we talk about environmental and chemical contaminants and food being a hot topic, we're talking about this category encompassing things like heavy metals, and that's especially in foods for young children. PFAs, Bisphenols, phthalates and pesticides. So that's the range of things we're talking about here. So just kind of like touch on some hot points with this. In October, for example, senators in the US urged FDA to revoke its remaining authorizations for 28 phthalates in food contact materials, saying these chemicals are toxic. Now, most phthalates are no longer in use by the food industry, but uses are still authorized for a few types. Now, FDA denied that request based on how the request classified all 28 of the phthalate chemicals into a single class. So that was kind of an interesting thing that happened there. Also, a Consumer Reports study and earlier in the year found relatively high levels of 10 phthalates and 3 bisphenols in nearly all foods in the US although did say that they had seen a reduction in bisphenol A or BPA as you probably know it better compared to 2009. It's worth mentioning BPA is banned for use in baby bottles and infant formula cans. So that's one place you will not find it. Now, speaking about toxic heavy metals, in September we saw a bill that was introduced to the Senate called the Safe School Meals Act. And that act was would seek to make widespread reforms to school lunches across the nation to reduce toxic heavy metals, pesticides, food dyes and chemical contaminants in school meals. It would also, if it was passed, would force FDA to set maximum allowable limits for heavy metals and school foods. Now, no progress as yet has been seen on this bill, but if it were to pass, it would certainly require FDA to do a lot of things and it would certainly require a lot of training, drastic changes to school lunches. So that's another interesting thing. Now moving to the eu, we saw a lot of concern in the EU about chemicals migrating from food packaging and eu. The EU is considering, for example, a ban on bpa, a total ban on BPA and food packaging. And this is kind of based on EFSA's lowering of the tolerable daily intake of BPA by 20,000 times, which puts most people over the daily limit. So they're kind of using that as the basis for this total BPA ban, which may happen. Now moving to pesticides, although pesticide residues continue to fall well below legal limits in both the U.S. and the EU, according to the USDA, the FDA and EFSA, which indicates that consumer health risks from pesticides are low. Some uses of pesticides have proven problematic. So for example, two pesticides were effectively canceled in the US US this year by epa and others are coming under greater scrutiny. EPA immediately suspended the use of the herbicide Dactal in August due to health harms and a lack of requested data on the chemical by the manufacturer. Also, EPA proposed in May to cancel all agricultural uses of the pesticide acephate based on negative neurological health effects via drinking water exposure for pesticide handlers.

[A]

I just want to say something about this. Is it Dacthol that we covered earlier in this year? Because it really was shocking to me that when we did it, that what came out was, first of all, when EPA took it off the market, it was an emergency order. They put out an emergency order for a chemical that had been on the market for 40 years? No, sorry, sorry, not for 40 years. It's been on the market since 1958. So how long is that? I can't do math in my head. I'd have to anymore. It's gone. That ability is officially gone.

[D]

But 70 or something, it's a long.

[A]

It's a long time. Right. And it was in 2013 that they requested more studies be done by the manufacturers. Please present us with more data. Data. Well, they didn't. And so here we are all these years later, and I think that this is. This is one of those cases that. And maybe the public doesn't know all of these details, but it was shocking to me. You know, why don't people have high confidence? Well, let's review. And then when it does come down, it's an emergency order. I don't know that one. You know, make it make sense.

[C]

I. Yeah, yeah. And I. And then, you know, we also saw like a study by the Environmental Working Group, which is a group that releases the annual Dirty Dozen list of fruits and vegetables that are contaminated by pesticide residues. And the EWG published a study in February that shows that the pesticide chlormaquat is detected in four out of five people that are tested for it. Although the EPA interestingly has proposed that chlormaquat be allowed for use on grain crops in the US So we're detecting it in people, but the EPA wants to allow its use. So that's kind of interesting.

[D]

Pesticides are something that our audience is really interested in. That Dirty Dozen list you were just mentioning is our most read article so out of 2024, with over 1700 hits, so much like the chemical additive, chemical contaminants, pesticides, huge deal right now in the public eye.

[C]

Yeah, we've definitely seen, seen that. And you know, we, we've seen interest in action at the state level, too. I mean, California wants to ban the use of an herbicide called paraquat starting in, in January. Paraquat's used typically on nut and fruit crops in California, but the EPA says it's highly toxic and it's been linked to cancer and Parkinson's disease. So California says let's not use that on our nut and fruit crops anymore. Which seems like a wise idea given EPA's assessment. Now, kind of moving, you know, to a last topic, heavy metals in foods. Now, we saw kind of a to do around Kraft Heinz voluntarily pulling its lunchables meals from school lunch programs in November after the release of a Consumer Reports petition to the USDA over their tests showing that there were high levels of lead, cadmium, and also sodium and phthalates in certain lunchables meals. So that was kind of a big story that broke. And then also they're introduced in May to Congress was the Baby Food Safety Act. That act would give FDA the authority to limit levels of lead, cadmium, mercury and arsenic in foods and juices for infants and young children. Children. I don't believe there's been too much progress on that act, but it's certainly still out there. And then, you know, speaking of that act, Maryland introduced a similar bill to that earlier in February that would require baby food manufacturers to test their products for toxic heavy metals and make those results available to consumers on their website. A similar bill to that Maryland bill was passed in California in October 2023. So if you sell baby foods in California, you do have to report your metals levels. I forget exactly when that's the reporting period starts, but at some point in the near future. And we continue to see consumer, industry and regulatory concerns over the 2023 cinnamon applesauce incident, in which extremely high levels of lead were discovered in cinnamon applesauce puree pouches intended for children.

[D]

Yeah, Afto's article on that in on that recall and the contamination associated with that incident, which they wrote for our E Magazine, was the most read E Magazine article of the year as well. So that was also at the top of people's minds.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, that was the August, September issue. So we were, you know, still seeing a lot of people concerned with that 2023 incident, you know, and rightly so. You know, mid late this year. So definitely on people's minds still now, I think, you know, as. As detection levels and thresholds continue to be refined for food packaging chemicals, pesticide residues and heavy metals and foods, one of the questions that remains is, you know, how can the science be directed to focus regulators on reducing or eliminating what are really the most harmful chemicals and contaminants in food? So, you know, how can the science be directed to do that most effectively? And I know, Bob, you've kind of had some comments on this before in previous podcasts that we've talked about.

[B]

Well, the issue is going to be one of two things. First off is the level of detection of these chemicals, even in a food matrix, which is a difficult matrix to work with, is so low orders of magnitude, several orders of magnitude below what we could detect in the recent past that we're able to detect pesticides and additives and things like that at a very, very low level. We talked about this with the Senate bill in the school lunch food safety where they said that if, if no levels are set by the epa, if I remember the way this is written, that it will be the lowest detectable level. My view on that is you're going to detect, detect that sort of level all the time and you're going to be pulling foods out of the school lunch program and it's going to look like it's a disaster. But when really is, what happens is you're able to detect such, such low levels that what would come in next is of course, the science of toxicology. We just talked a second ago about the difference between an oral route or some other route with, with cosmetics. And that's where the toxicology comes in. Because again, there are things you can put drops into your eye and make major damage to your eye, but if you put it on your skin, it doesn't do that kind of damage. The toxicological route is going to really make a difference. And particularly as we start to see these lower and lower detection levels, it may even get beyond what the toxicologist could do. So I think that's where the crux of this is, is, you know, do you try to eliminate every one of these pesticides to zero, which is impossible, or do you find some toxicological risk assessment that makes sense? And I think that's where this has to come out, hopefully. Otherwise I think it'll cause serious problems.

[C]

And, you know, the same thing with food packaging chemicals. You know, some food packaging chemicals we're seeing at this point are ubiquitous in the environment. So like PFAS or microplastic nanoplastics, you know, will it be even possible to reduce them down to levels that regulators in the US and the EU would consider acceptable?

[B]

You know, here's another kind of a thought problem that we can all engage in and think about, you know, on our own time.

[A]

As long as it's not a word.

[B]

Problem, it won't be a word problem. So if a train leaves Philadelphia going, I knew that was coming. I knew that was coming. No, but we've talked in the past about things like food waste, and we've also talked about really innovative packaging materials that can help help preserve foods and eliminate spoilage and really eliminate the risk from different microbial levels or pathogen levels. But what if that food packaging, which would, which would save us or really reduce the risk of pathogens, has some slight low level plastic chemical in there that could make its way into the food, but it has no toxicological effect? Is that a good or a bad thing? We would save ourselves from pathogens. We might save ourselves some spoilage, but be exposed to some minuscule level of plasticizer. I don't think that's a, that's a question that we can answer sitting here. But that's one of the key things you're gonna have to say is we're gonna say if we're not going to have any of these products, we're not going to have any of those other benefits as well. And I think there's a trade off there.

[C]

Absolutely. Wow.

[A]

It is really something, you guys. I mean, this, I think this has been, this has been the mother lode. But, you know, as, as we go through and Adrian's reading off all these bullet points, like there's two or three stories that we've covered in each one of these bullets. Like, you can go, you could go down the rabbit hole on pretty much all of this and come up with even more information. We really, as the length of this episode.

[C]

Well, you'll see that in the show notes too. That's your holiday reading. Go through the show notes and you will have hours and hours and hours of back reading to do or refresher readings.

[A]

And I was going to try, based on Adrian's great suggestion, to like, oh, well, you know, let's relate this to all that we're covering at the summit and stuff. Well, I'd still be talking there too. I know that AFTO is going to be talking about recalls and about some of these high profile cases and problems. I can't find the title right now. HPAI we're going to be covering, we're going to be, you know, packaging on and on and on. So and of course, our town hall, which we're going to be having the regulators come, I think. I believe Dr. Esteban is no longer going to be in this role, but we're hoping that perhaps Sandy Eskin will come and join. Join us again. We always love seeing Sandy, as well as Jim Jones, who's already accepted the invitation, of course, Steve Manternach from afto and a new Megan Nichols. Contact cdc. Yes, from cdc. So we're looking forward to welcoming her. So anyway, an incredible episode, an incredible year, a very, a big year year and hopefully one that, you know, continues to bring us closer to, you know, improving the public health, which is what you all are dedicating your days to. And we thank you again for that. And of course, I want to thank, maybe I should do it in my end of podcast voice for you all. Thanks again. Thanks again to our Food Safety Matters podcast team, Adrian Bloom, Bob Ferguson and Bailey Anderson for joining us on the podcast today. And of course, thanks to all of you for listening. And you know, we love hearing from you. So please don't hesitate to send us your questions or suggestions to podcastood-safety.com or post a note on LinkedIn X or Facebook. We always love to get your feedback and to make sure that new and bonuses episodes magically appear in your podcast player. All you have to do is click that Follow or Subscribe button in the player of your choice and presto, bingo. All of the episodes appear. And while you're there, please throw some stars our way by rating the podcast, especially if you enjoyed it. It's good for everyone. And believe it or not, that's it for us today. Our next regular episode will post post on January 14th in the year of our Lord 2025. And in the meantime, take good care of yourselves and those around you and we'll talk to you soon.