Food Contamination And Poisoning

In a shift on federal food safety policy, the Bush administration soon will begin telling consumers during recalls whether their local grocery store has been stocking contaminated meat or poultry. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which announced the change Friday, currently publicizes food recalls and sources but does not tell consumers where the tainted products have gone. Long-standing anger about this policy flared in February during the largest beef recall in U.S.

Only jalapeno peppers grown in Mexico are implicated in the nationwide salmonella outbreak, the government announced Friday in clearing the U.S. crop. The Food and Drug Administration urged consumers to avoid raw Mexican jalapenos and the serrano peppers often confused with them, or dishes made with them such as salsa. But the big question is how hot pepper lovers would know where the peppers came from, especially in restaurant food.

The next time you make some microwave popcorn or cook a frozen pizza, consider this: The packaging of many of these products contains a chemical that the Environmental Protection Agency considers potentially carcinogenic and wants businesses to voluntarily stop using by 2015. Studies show that this chemical -- perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA -- is present in 98% of Americans' blood and 100% of newborns. It doesn't break down and thus accumulates in the system over time.

The government bungled the salmonella outbreak probe so badly, a House committee chairman said Thursday, that federal investigators reminded him of the Keystone Kops. A committee member hoped the maligned tomato can get its good name back. The House Energy and Commerce Committee conducted its own investigation of the Food and Drug Administration's probe of the salmonella scare.

A California food company is recalling 153,630 pounds of frozen ground beef after an E. coli outbreak shut down a Boy Scout camp in Virginia this week and sickened at least 22 people, health officials said Thursday. The meat from Azusa-based S&S Foods was intended for institutional use and food service companies, which normally supply restaurants, and wasn't sold at the retail level. Before the recall, the beef was shipped to distribution centers in Milwaukee and Allentown, Pa.

China's troubles with tainted baby formula grew into a national crisis today as health officials reported that a third infant had died, the number of illnesses skyrocketed to 6,244 and products from 22 companies tested positive for contamination with the industrial chemical melamine. The number of infants sickened after ingesting the tainted powdered milk was five times more than what the government reported Monday.

The number of children sickened by tainted milk in China has jumped to nearly 53,000, the government said Sunday as it vowed to crack down on those responsible. More than 80% of the 12,892 children hospitalized in recent weeks were 2 years old or younger, the Health Ministry said in a statement posted on its website. It said most consumed infant formula from the Sanlu Group. An additional 39,965 children received outpatient treatment and were considered "basically recovered," the ministry said.

China's product-quality chief resigned Monday as the government sought to contain a national crisis over tainted baby formula that has sickened 53,000 children and implicated the biggest dairy producers in the country. The official New China News Agency said without explanation that Li Changjiang had stepped down as director of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine.

How quickly things can change. Exactly one month ago, China was staging the closing ceremony of the Olympics, basking in a haul of gold medals and wide praise for nearly perfect management of the Summer Games. Today it is struggling with another crisis in a year that, aside from two weeks in August, has been filled with scandal, natural disasters and ethnic troubles.

The Food and Drug Administration and state health authorities warned consumers Friday not to eat any flavors of White Rabbit candy imported from China because they may be contaminated with the chemical melamine. The California Department of Public Health specifically identified White Rabbit candies imported and distributed by Queensway Foods Co. of Burlingame, Calif. Queensway is voluntarily recalling the chewy sweets after state testing detected melamine in some pieces.