The importance of FDA and other global health agencies to seriously monitor the international food traffic network is brought to the forefront this week as a new multidrug-resistant strain of salmonella called S. Kentucky is back in major countries such as the United States, Denmark, France, England and Wales according to analysis. This particular strain has a high level of resistance to ciprofloxacin, a common treatment for severe salmonella infections.
The investigators found that chickens and turkeys from Ethiopia, Morocco and Nigeria carried the S. Kentucky strain, an indication that poultry may be an important source of infection.
Simon Le Hello said in a journal news release based on the published study:
“We hope that this publication might stir awareness among national and international health, food and agricultural authorities so that they take the necessary measures to control and stop the dissemination of this strain before it spreads globally, as did another multidrug-resistant strain of salmonella, Typhimurium DT104, starting in the 1990s.”
This strain, first identified in the 1930s, infected 489 patients in France, England and Wales, and Denmark between 2000 and 2008. The first infections were acquired mainly in Egypt between 2002 and 2005. Since 2006, infections have also been acquired in various parts of Africa and the Middle East.
In July 2011, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration stepped in and took action allowing the agency to protect the nation against potentially unsafe good from entering the supply chain and ward off stings of contamination such as the rise in salmonella popping up in many segments of the nutrition pyramid. The rules are the first to be issued by the FDA under the new authorities granted the agency by the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), signed into law by President Obama in January.
The government description of the Act states:
“It enables FDA to focus more on preventing food safety problems rather than relying primarily on reacting to problems after they occur. The law also provides FDA with new enforcement authorities designed to achieve higher rates of compliance with prevention- and risk-based food safety standards and to better respond to and contain problems when they do occur. The law also gives FDA important new tools to hold imported foods to the same standards as domestic foods and directs FDA to build an integrated national food safety system in partnership with state and local authorities.”
Now the FDA won’t have to work with state agencies to embargo a food product under the state’s legal authority until federal enforcement action could be initiated in federal court as was the case until now. If the FDA catches wind of contamination, they can directly stop the influx of such products without presenting evidence that a food product presented was contaminated or mislabeled in a way that presented a threat of serious adverse health consequences or death to humans or animals.
Second, another new law requires that if any company or person’s product was denied access to another country, it must be reported instead of taking a shot at entering the United States undetected. This new requirement will provide the agency with more information about foods that are being imported, which improves the FDA’s ability to target foods that may pose a significant risk to public health.
Written by Sy Kraft