Recent foodborne illness outbreaks, including the Hepatitis A outbreak linked to frozen strawberries and the salmonella outbreak linked to cucumbers from Mexico, have drawn increased attention to produce safety and preventing foodborne illnesses.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that foodborne illnesses impact approximately one in six Americans annually, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that the economic cost of foodborne illnesses is more than $15.5 billion annually.
In a new commentary, Tony Yang, associate professor of health administration and policy, and Mathew Swinburne of the University of Maryland, examine the potential and challenges of new produce safety regulations, focusing on three concerns representative of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s communications with the public: agricultural water, biological soil amendments, and Native American variance requests. The commentary is published in Public Health Reports.
The authors explain that implementing produce safety regulations will face challenges in education, outreach, and funding. For example, the Congressional Budget Office has states that there is a funding gap between the FDA’s current resources and what is needed to fully implement the Food Safety Modernization Act. Read the full commentary.