The Obama administration has created a deputy food commissioner position to coordinate safety in the case of an outbreak of salmonella and is creating a better system to track and identify the origins of foodborne illnesses.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack will discuss the initiatives in a live online chat today (July 7) at 2:15 p.m. ET. To participate, visit http://apps.facebook.com/whitehouselive/.
A press release sas that “Sebelius and Vilsack will discuss the continuing work of the Food Safety Working Group – a recently established partnership between HHS and the Department of Agriculture tasked with upgrading food safety laws, fostering coordination throughout government, and ensuring the safety of America’s food supply.”
Tip sheets
Lifting the shroud: Using multiple-cause-of-death data
Melamine: A primer on the contamination of food
AHCJ article
Fatal Food: A study of illness outbreaks
Recent news
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Salmonella outbreak: A selection of recent stories
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Private companies, not the FDA, increasingly perform food safety inspections
Web sites
Center for Infectious Disease Research & Policy
Outbreak Alert! Database
