Mass. losing money due to food illnesses

Failures in food-safety legislation cost Massachusetts about $532,128 between January 2011 and September 2012, according to a report released Wednesday by the independent consumer group MASSPirg.

Nationwide, 37 citizens have died from illnesses directly related to these high-volume food recalls, according to MASSPirg. There have been also been 464 hospitalizations due to recalled food products and 1,446 incidences of salmonella.

Cantaloupe, mangoes, papaya, raw tuna, ground turkey and peanut butter were carriers of salmonella in recent outbreaks, the report stated.

MASSPirg estimates the total economic burden in all 50 states from illnesses caused by food recalls as $277,263,040 over the same time period, the report stated.

Massachusetts reported 48 cases of non-typhoidal salmonella, costing about $11,086 per case.

Deirdre Cummings, MASSPirg legislative director, said raw tuna was responsible for a large chunk of recent Massachusetts food-borne illness.

“That is particularly problematic because most people have a sense that they try to eat healthy, and we are seeing a lot of problems coming in on fish and also produce,” she said.

The report stated Moon Marine USA Corporation’s raw yellowfin tuna was responsible for 36 of the 48 salmonella illnesses in Massachusetts.

The corporation, based in Cupertino, Calif., voluntarily recalled 58,828 pounds of frozen raw yellow fin tuna product earlier in the year, labeled as Nakaochi Scrape, according to a Food and Drug Administration press release from April.

Sunland Inc. peanut butter products are responsible for three cases of salmonella in Massachusetts, according to the study.

“It’s unthinkable in this day and age that you have to be concerned about a peanut butter and jelly sandwich,” Cummings said.

Both Sunland’s peanut butter plant and their peanut-processing plant have been shut down while an internal investigation occurs, said Sunland Vice President Katalin Coburn.

“We are continuing to analyze all of the test results in a very thorough way and we will be issuing a statement once that analysis has been completed together with all of the necessary corrective actions,” Coburn said.

Arkansas-based Cargill Meat Solutions was responsible for four cases of salmonella caused by their ground turkey products and three cases of salmonella based on their ground beef product, according to the MASSPirg report.

In August 2011, Cargill recalled about 36 million pounds of ground turkey products that may have been contaminated with a multi-drug resistant strain of salmonella, according to an August 2011 Food and Drug Administration press release.

In September 2011, the company recalled another 185,000 pounds of the same product, according to a press release.

Hannaford Supermarket’s ground beef and Agromod Produce Inc.’s papaya products are each responsible for one case of salmonella, the report stated.
Cargill also recalled about 29,300 pounds of turkey in July 2012, according to a Cargill press release.

The Food Safety Modernization Act, signed into law in 2011, requires the FDA to inspect all high-risk domestic food facilities at least once every three years.

FSMA gives the FDA the power to detain food, prohibit certain facilities from distributing food, inspect foreign food facilities and potentially prohibit the entry of foreign food into the U.S., the MASSPirg report stated.

Cummings said more must be done to protect Americans from unsafe food, including proper enforcement of the 2011 law.

“We ought to be investigating in those systems that protect our public health, and unfortunately this is one of those areas that has been not adequately funded,” she said.

In February, President Barack Obama requested a $4.5-billion budget for the FDA, but both proposed budgets from the Senate and the House fell $600 to $700 million below that figure, according to the MASSPirg report.

Josh Frierman, a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences at Boston University, said he has had food poisoning twice from sushi.

“The other day, actually, I was in the GSU and I got one of the sushi things they had, and it was before they really opened and the whole thing was a frozen block,” he said. “I gave it back, I didn’t eat it.”

Chad Cohen, a sophomore in the Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, said the report would not change the way he grocery shops.

“I don’t think it would happen to me,” he said. “I don’t know how to explain it, but I just feel like I don’t think what I would want to get would have salmonella. It was surprising that peanut butter had it. That surprised me a lot.”

CAS freshman Rachel Rosen said the study probably might make her a little more cautious.

“It probably wouldn’t change what I eat too much, but it would make me a little bit more wary of particularly foods I think of as foods that might contain salmonella,” she said. “Ground meats — chicken in particular.”