cbsnews.com – Only on “CBS This Morning,” we have the results from an protects the public with food recalls. Government investigators from the Office of Inspector General (OIG) for the Department of Health and Human Services looked at 30 voluntary food recalls reported to the FDA between October 2012 and May 2015. They found the recall process did not always ensure the safety of the nation’s food supply.
Investigator George Nedder and his team reviewed 30 voluntary recalls out of 1,500 overseen by the FDA over a two-and-a-half year period and found deficiencies. Among them? That the “FDA could not always ensure that firms initiated [food] recalls promptly.”
It’s something Nedder said can be a critical failure, reports CBS News correspondent Anna Werner.
“Twenty-three of the 30 recalls we looked at were Class I. By definition, they can cause a serious, irreversible medical condition … or potentially can cause death,” Nedder said.
For example, in a salmonella outbreak in 2014 linked to nut butter, investigators found it took 165 days from the date the problem product was identified to the date of the firm’s voluntary recall. There were 14 illnesses in 11 states.
My immediate thoughts after reading this are summed up in this classic Sportscenter commercial.