Improved Auditing and Testing Needed to Ensure Food Safety

According to the article, “Food Problems Elude Private Inspectors” (NYT, March 6, 2009), “An examination of the largest food poisoning outbreaks in recent years — in products as varied as spinach, pet food, and a children’s snack, Veggie Booty — show that auditors failed to detect problems at plants whose contaminated products later sickened consumers.” The article adds that the F.D.A. “has proposed a voluntary certification program that would toughen audit standards and alert federal authorities of problems — an idea that has met stiff resistance from the food industry.” The full text of the article is available here.

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