DAVID FOLKENFLIK, HOST:
There have been a lot of unwanted side dishes on the menu this year, between Cyclospora in iceberg lettuce, salmonella in jalapeno peppers and eggs, and E. coli in frozen blueberries. Yuck. So we've heard a lot this summer about foodborne illnesses and recalls. What should we be doing about it? Let's bring in Don Schaffner. He's a food microbiology specialist and a distinguished professor at Rutgers University. Don, welcome to the show.
DON SCHAFFNER: Hey, David. A pleasure to be here today.
FOLKENFLIK: So it's easy to hear about all these food recalls and imagine the risk is higher than ever, that recalls are happening more often than ever. How true is that?
SCHAFFNER: Well, it's hard to get definitive data, but I don't think it's true. I think it's more that people have been sensitized to this, and it's getting reported on. I mean, we had that massive Cyclospora outbreak centered in Michigan and Ohio with just case counts through the roof. And I think that sort of sensitized everybody to the safety of the food supply. So the blueberry outbreak's getting some attention, the jalapeno outbreak's getting some attention. And actually, just as I was sitting here waiting for the interview to start, I see something from FDA talking about E. coli and salmonella in sprouts that apparently is just freshly announced.
FOLKENFLIK: Oh, good Lord (laughter). Like, you cannot get away from it. All right. The pace of these, I guess, are not at insane levels, and yet, they are omnipresent, and they're real. What factors are driving these outbreaks?
SCHAFFNER: Oh, that's a great question. If we knew exactly what factors were driving the outbreaks, we would address them and stop them. I will say - I mean, I'm a great believer in consumption of fresh produce. I eat a fresh salad for dinner most every night and have continued to do so throughout all of these outbreaks. But with fresh produce, because there is no final kill step, the consumer is essentially hoping or presuming that everybody that's handled that produce before it got to them has done their job correctly, and there's no pathogens.
FOLKENFLIK: It's a lot of faith. When things go awry in this regard, who bears the responsibility for letting us know as consumers?
SCHAFFNER: Ultimately, the responsibility lies with the company. So obviously, public health will become aware of an outbreak. They'll communicate amongst themselves. They'll communicate with other states. At some point, CDC will get involved and try to figure out what the source is, if it's everybody getting sick from the exact same microorganism. If it's a USDA-regulated product, then USDA will get involved. If it's anything else that's not meat and poultry, it'll go to FDA. And then FDA makes the determination, OK, this is a real thing, contacts the company. Typically, the company will announce the recall, but if it's not a company that sells directly to the consumer, they report it to, let's say, the restaurant or to the grocery store, and then the restaurant and the grocery store takes the next step there.
I know there's a lot of people out there that use these shoppers club cards because they get a discount. Another advantage of having a shoppers club card is that that grocery store chain will know that you purchased, let's say, implicated jalapenos, and then they can reach out to you and say, hey, look, we think you've got some bad jalapenos, please return them to us for credit or reimbursement.
FOLKENFLIK: Don, I certainly hope when you start your garage band, it will be called implicated jalapenos.
SCHAFFNER: (Laughter) That's a great one. Yes.
FOLKENFLIK: Hard to follow every single recall as just the average person. Where should we be looking or checking, as consumers, to see if some item in our grocery cart might just have been affected?
SCHAFFNER: Sure. Well, there are apps that you can get and services that you can subscribe to, and you will hear about every single recall for every single thing. I subscribed to one of those for about a half a day, and then I decided I couldn't manage that. It's important to realize that we have several classifications of recalls - Class I, Class II and Class III. It's really the Class Is that people need to be aware of. Those are the ones that are triggered in response to a foodborne disease outbreak. Because, really, what I'm concerned with as a food safety professional is, are people actually getting sick? 'Cause there's lots of reasons why foods could be recalled that might not be related to actually making someone sick.
FOLKENFLIK: This feels, in some ways, as though it shouldn't really rest on our shoulders as consumers, but here we are. You know, what tips - other than subscribing to website alert saying here are things that have been impacted - would you recommend to folks to limit their exposure to these kinds of food pathogens?
SCHAFFNER: Unfortunately, with things like fresh produce, there's not a lot that you can do other than to stop eating fresh produce, which I do not recommend because most of the fresh produce that's available today is perfectly fine. Or, honestly, cooking your fresh produce, which that might work for jalapenos. It's probably not going to turn out super good for iceberg lettuce. So there's obviously things that you can do in your home kitchen - wash your hands, sanitize your cutting boards, avoid cross contamination, refrigerate leftovers promptly, all of that good stuff. But those are things that we should be doing anyway that we're not necessarily going to do in response to a particular outbreak.
FOLKENFLIK: And what about those companies that grow and distribute and sell the produce to us? What's their path to regaining public trust that we can regularly eat the fresh food in their shelves?
SCHAFFNER: I think it starts with telling people what you know and when you know it. And if you don't have complete information, telling people that you don't have complete information. And then when you learn more, let people know. OK, we don't know exactly what the situation is, but we'll give you an update in a week. And then, of course, once they find their original root cause, if they can find a root cause, then they need to put measures in place to stop it from happening in the future.
FOLKENFLIK: That was Don Schaffner. He's a food microbiology specialist and distinguished professor at Rutgers University. Thanks so much.
SCHAFFNER: My pleasure, David. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
