Administration starts up food safety Web site
By Mary Mosquera
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
The Obama administration unveiled a consumer Web site today to provide the latest information about food safety and food recalls from across the federal government.
The Web site was launched by the Heath & Human Services and Agriculture department’s Food Safety Working Group and is part the administration’s emphasis on prevention in public health, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in announcing the service.
People can go to the Web site and sign up to receive email and RSS alerts on recalled or potentially unsafe food, ask questions of scientific experts across government and listen to podcasts or view videos on food safety.
Later phases of the site will include recall feeds for texting and mobile phones. The site will also feature a foodsafety.gov widget that individuals and organizations can download and highlight on their social networking sites. The widget will instantly update viewers with the latest food safety recalls.
“Consumers no longer will have to search around in different places trying to figure out which agency manages which food product,” Sebelius said in a statement.
The Web site will emphasize prevention by highlighting the steps businesses and consumers can take to avoid illness. It will also provide consumers a contact if they believe they became ill from eating a certain food.
"Those reports of illness can help us identify potential outbreaks sooner and strengthen our efforts to protect Americans from unsafe food and food-borne illness,” said Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The consumer Web site complements an online portal that the Food and Drug Administration unveiled on Sept. 8 for the food industry. FDA’s Reportable Food Registry is an online portal that food industry officials must use to alert the agency when their products might sicken people or animals.
Food-borne illnesses result in 5,000 deaths and 325,000 hospitalizations annually, Sebelius said. For example, more than 142,000 people get sick from eggs contaminated with a strain of salmonella. FDA believes it can cut that number in half through rules made earlier this year that required egg producers to test for salmonella regularly.
