Getting out the word about recalls to consumers, Stores could do a better job letting us know about tainted products

Getting out the word about recalls to consumers

Stores could do a better job letting us know about tainted products

The food safety system in this country is outdated and inadequate and needs a major overhaul.

We are constantly told the American food supply is the safest in the world. That may be true, but too many contaminated products still make it to market. In just the last two years, we’ve seen widespread bacterial contamination of spinach, lettuce, tomatoes, meat and nuts.

In 2008, the nation’s largest beef recall took place. This year, more than 3,000 products made with peanuts were pulled off the market in the largest food recall of any kind in U.S. history. The peanuts, contaminated with salmonella bacteria, sickened nearly 700 people in 44 states and caused nine deaths.

Giant recalls like this are headline news, but most food recalls get little or no coverage. Even when the recall is extensively reported, some people don’t get the word.

Seattle attorney Bill Marler sues food companies that sell tainted food. He points to the ConAgra recall of Peter Pan and Great Value peanut butter back in 2007. One in four people who got sick, Marler says, did so after the recall was issued. “Now unless you think they were trying to commit suicide, they simply didn’t know about the recall.”

The last line of defenseStores are supposed to pull recalled products from their shelves. But that doesn’t always happen or happen quickly. Dean Florez, a California state senator and longtime advocate for better food safety regulations, says his staffers went looking and had no trouble finding recalled items still on store shelves.

Florez says our food safety system is in such disarray, he wants to see supermarket technology used to catch harmful and potentially deadly items before they leave the store. “This is the last line of defense,” he says.

He’s written a bill that would require all supermarkets in California with programmable checkout scanners to update their computer databases as soon as they receive a recall notice.

Then if a recalled item is still on the shelf, the register would block the sale when it is scanned.

FULL STORY: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30726733/