Food Safety and Inspection Service Undersecretary for Food Safety Richard Raymond, Food Safety and Inspection Service Deputy Assistant Administrator Dr. Daniel Engeljohn and Assistant Administrator of the Office of Public Health Science Dr. David Goldman Hold a News Teleconference On Topps Recall and E. Coli Reduction Efforts

Political Transcript Wire › August 21, 2009

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UNDERSECRETARY RAYMOND, DEPUTY ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR ENGELJOHN AND ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR GOLDMAN HOLD A NEWS TELECONFERENCE ON TOPPS RECALL AND E. COLI REDUCTION EFFORTS, AS RELEASED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

OCTOBER 4, 2007 SPEAKERS: RICHARD RAYMOND, UNDERSECRETARY FOR FOOD SAFETY, FOOD SAFETY AND INSPECTION SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

DR. DANIEL ENGELJOHN, DEPUTY ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR, FOOD SAFETY AND INSPECTION SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

DR. DAVID GOLDMAN, ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR, OFFICE OF PUBLIC HEALTH SCIENCE, FOOD SAFETY AND INSPECTION SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

[*] RAYMOND: Thanks, Amanda, and my welcome also to all of you who joined us on kind of a late notice for this, what we think is an important teleconference. Before we get into the Topps recall and statistics there and our future plans for E. coli control, I want to talk a little bit about the bigger, broader picture of E. coli and what the agency has been doing this summer.

We saw a number of increased number of E. coli 0157:H7 positive samples that were collected earlier in May and June, and we also saw some increase in recalls associated with the pathogen. And because of that the Food Safety Inspection Service initiated a number of steps in June to address why there has been an increase in the positives and also how to control this pathogen.

FSIS has already taken a number of steps to move towards understanding the increase in the E. coli positive samples, but there are others that are still under development. For example, in July the agency doubled its E. coli sampling and found no positives during that time period, and we continue with increased testing at this time.

Another aspect of our response we're planning has been to examine the efficiency and the effectiveness of outbreak investigations in recalls. We know that we can do better, and we are actively engaging with our public health partners at the federal, state, and local levels to determine what we can do better with our collaboration and coordination efforts to protect the pu...

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