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Firm/Organization: Marler Clark LLP, PS
Blogs: Food Safety News

Latest Articles

illustration perchlorate
Opinion Today, the FDA doubled-down on its flawed 2005 and 2017 decisions to allow the hazardous chemical perchlorate to be added to dry food packaging. The FDA denied a request for a public hearing submitted by the Center for Food Safety, Breast Cancer Prevention Partners, and other advocacy groups. The food safety and cancer groups were joined by the Environmental Defense Fund, Natural Resources Defense Council, Center for Environmental Health, Center for Science in the Public Interest,…
Opinion AFDO has been a long-term collaborator with the Food Safety Summit, participating as a member of the Educational Advisory Board, coordinating summit sessions, and providing technical specialists for sessions and a presenter for the Town Hall session. You may wonder the association representing state and local regulatory agencies is so interested in a meeting largely attended by industry? First, state and local agencies perform most of the food safety inspections across the United States. It’s…
food crime scene
Advertiser Sponsored Content How much money have you lost in the past 24 hours? How much food has gone bad and how much time was wasted in your kitchen?   We all understand the paramount importance of food safety when it comes to our brand’s image and our customers’ health, but do you really understand the danger of ignoring food safety as it pertains to your bottom line?  Food contamination costs U.S. consumers around $55 …
FEAR acronym concept of bravery choice in life
Opinion There are three letters that should strike fear into every food executive’s heart – and three steps those business people can take to protect their companies. No, the three letters are not F-D-A. Although the Food and Drug Administration is quite powerful, the agency can only wield that power against a particular food company when it has the evidence to do so. The three letters I am referring to are W-G-S – which stands…
fake reviews online
Opinion An emerging body of scholarship argues that machine learning and artificial intelligence can solve food safety enforcement. By mining tweets and Yelp reviews, health departments can target inspections more effectively.  With much fanfare, health departments in Boston, New York City, Las Vegas and Chicago have experimented with using social media to send allocate enforcement resources to restaurants predicted to be non-compliant. As the Atlantic put it, predictive policing means “Yelp might clean up the restaurant industry.” Yelp’s…
right tool for the job
Opinion Food companies have been at the forefront of technological innovation and scientific research and development for decades upon decades. Cursory attention to the items we eat — how those items are grown, sourced, processed, and packaged – provides ample evidence of scientific research and development and technological innovation in the food industry. Simultaneously, food companies are justifiably concerned about protecting their brand names, market share, liability risks, and consumer relations.   Over the most recent 30…
pull quote NRDC sad lettuce
Editor’s note: This guest column was written by Senior Director of Health and Food Erik Olson and Interim Food Director Lena Brook of the Natural Resources Defense Council. (In an earlier version of this post, FSN incorrectly identified the NRDC. The acronym stands for Natural Resources Defense Council.) We live in partisan times, as anyone who had to sit through Thanksgiving dinner with distant relatives can probably attest. But even your crazy uncle would agree…
illustration can you hear me now
Opinion Editor’s note on the author: Michéle Samarya-Timm, a health educator and Registered Environmental Health Specialist working for Somerset (NJ) County Department of Health, originally wrote this column for barfblog.com. It is reprinted here with permission of barfblog founder Doug Powell. Baking pumpkin pies with Aunt Kay’s secret recipe. Watching “Miracle on 34th Street.” Preparing the dining room with the good china.  Diffusing political conversations at the dinner table. Some traditions give a sense of warmth, connection, and continuity, and…
word cloud research
Opinion The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s reorganization plan, which would relocate a key agricultural research agency outside Washington, DC, has drawn increasing criticism from those who know and depend on its economic and statistical analyses. First announced during Congress’s summer recess in August, the reorganization plan for the USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS) has been closed off to congressional input and public comment — in stark contrast to other recent federal agency reorganization plans.…
illustration cultured meat cultured diamonds
­Opinion The USDA and FDA recently announced their historic agreement to jointly regulate meat grown from animal cells, helping pave the pathway to commercialization of what’s often called cultured meat, clean meat, and now the newest term: cell-based meat. Start-ups culturing meat and their supporters point out that cellular agriculture can theoretically produce vast amounts of meat with relatively few resources, all while leaving a lighter footprint on the planet and animals, as well as…