The Reporter obtained copies of the Chicago Department of Public Health’s daily inspection reports for the vendors who are returning to this year’s event after participating at last year’s event, which attracted 3.6 million visitors. The Reporter found that in 2007:

* More than 85 percent of the 67 food vendors had violations during their onsite inspections.



* Of the 57 vendors with violations, the average number of violations per restaurant was four.



* Nearly 40 percent of all violations occurred during the first three days of the festival.



* One restaurant, Star of Siam, was cited for storing an open container of vinegar next to an open container of bleach. Another, La Justicia, was cited for storing enchilada sauce in a container that read “dish soap.”

The Reporter also said that 10 people will be filing lawsuits against Pars Cove Restaurant in connection with the salmonella outbreak that may have sickened up to 790 people at the taste last year. The salmonella was eventually traced back to some contaminated hummus.

Leaving A Bad Taste [Chicago Reporter]

The Philadelphia Inquirer used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain a 21-page FDA report, then had experts review it for feedback:

FDA inspectors spent a total of 30 days at the West Point plant between Nov. 26, 2007, and Jan. 17, 2008. The agency could go on to issue a warning letter and take other actions if its concerns are not addressed. The FDA declined repeated requests to comment.
 
The report cites cases where bulk lots of PEDVAX and ProQuad were contaminated. Unwanted "fibers" were found on the vial stoppers of MMR, the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, among others. They were caused by "lesser quality" supplies from a vendor, the FDA report said.
 
The report noted defective vials had to be rejected twice to be discarded, and that one internal quality investigation went on for more than a year.
 
Several experts said no single finding was horrendous but that the overall pattern was troubling. "It's the sum of many small things that puts the whole operation in question," said consultant Wheelwright. 
"FDA report shows problems at Merck vaccine plant" [Philly.com]
(Photo: Getty)

The researchers freeze-dried the heparin and used a combination of nuclear magnetic resonance imaging and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry to analyze its structure. In addition to a known impurity of heparin called dermatan sulfate, they found that contaminated lots contain a molecule that looks similar to heparin and showed it was almost certainly oversulfated chondroitin sulfate.

China says their tests show that only some of the Heparin that caused the problems contained the contaminants, so it therefore must be something else:

They said other contaminants, problems with the device used to inject the drug or health factors with the patients who used the drug could be to blame.

Estimates suggest more than 80 percent of all active ingredients used by U.S. drug manufacturers come from abroad. But the FDA only inspects foreign drug plants about once every 13 years, compared to every two to three years for domestic plants, according to the Government Accountability Office. The GAO finds that China's drug plants are inspected once every 30 to 40 years.
 
The FDA plans to establish permanent overseas offices in numerous countries, including China, to help address the problem. More foreign plant inspections than ever were conducted by the FDA in 2007, dedicating about $10 million to the process. But GAO analysis said it would cost the FDA $67 to $71 million each year to inspect the thousands of foreign plants on the agency's priority list.
 
Still, von Eschenbach told the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations that in heparin's case, even if the Chinese plant had been inspected years ago, "we would not have detected that contamination" because the test to detect it was just developed.

The lawsuit is seeking class action status, and will include passengers who traveled on Southwest's planes from 2002 until this month— though presumably one would have to have flown on an MD-80?

Lew Garrison, a Birmingham lawyer who represents the passengers, said Tuesday the class could include hundreds of thousands of people who traveled on Southwest planes from January 2002 through last month.

Garrison, in a telephone interview, said the lawsuit primarily seeks reimbursement for tickets for those flights on the grounds that the Dallas-based airline did not comply with government regulations and did not honor its contract with its customers.

It looks like Toyota is attempting to avoid both an official recall and any sort of class-action suit by being pro-active in dealing with the problem vehicles, which is not a bad thing. The opportunity to make a profit off the purchase of your vehicle hassle-free is likely PR and not standard operating procedure, but it's a smart way to lure Tacoma owners in for the free inspection. "This is not a recall," writes the Toyota exec on their blog. "What's important is that we take care of our owners. We just thought you should know that.

"Living Up to Our Commitment" [Toyota Blog] (Thanks to Mark!)

RELATED
"Rusty Toyota Tacoma? Toyota May Buy Back Your Truck For 150% The Value" [Jalopnik]

"We expect this voluntary review, which is taking place on Delta's 117 MD-88 aircraft, to result in approximately 275 cancellations through early Friday, impacting about 3 percent of Delta's worldwide flight schedule. Based on the aggressive and proactive re-inspection schedule, Delta expects inspections to be complete on approximately 70 percent of its MD-88 fleet by early evening, with normal operations planned by early Friday."

"Delta, American cancel flights for safety inspections" [East Bay Business Times]
(Photo: Cubbie_n_Vegas)

Delta (DAL, Fortune 500) is inspecting the wiring of 117 MD-88 and 16 MD-90 aircraft. The airline says the checks are voluntary and are expected to be completed by week's end. American Airlines, meanwhile, is examining wiring secured to the MD-80 aircraft.

"Has your department tested every parking meter in the city within the past three years?" I asked Deputy Commissioner Dominic Verdi. "No," he replied. So how many have they inspected? The Deputy Commissioner wasn't clear, saying "The exact number I don't have in front of me."

But we know, after 3 On Your Side reviewed the inspection reports ourselves. Out of 14,500 meters, only around 2,000 have been tested and certified for timing from 2005 through 2007, that is less than 15 percent!

Verdi blames lack of man power, L&I only has one inspector assigned to that job.

"There is no way possible for us to handle all of those meters," said Verdi.

But when we checked, we found some meters were being checked time and time again! A meter on South 9th Street was tested at 11 a.m. one morning and approved, then hours later it was tested again, and approved again!

When I asked Verdi if the inspector was clueless, he just shrugged.

Then there is the situation we found on Ridge Avenue, a meter was tested and approved eight times last year, and it happened in other places too!

Our town—which is full of parking ticket sticklers and has this suburban cowboy ticket inspector guy who revels in ticketing parents who dash into stores while their kids wait in the car—was caught issuing tickets that listed only the month and year of a registration's expiration, not the exact day. As a result, the town's tickets were invalid. The townspeople celebrated and the suburban cowboy cried. True story.

Anyway, if you live in Philadelphia and have an outstanding parking ticket, click on this link (PDF) to see if the meter was properly certified. If it wasn't, the ticket is not legally enforceable and will be tossed out by any law-abiding judge.

If only this applied to New York City's $150 parking tickets...

3 On Your Side: Parking Meter Investigation [CBS3]
(Photo: Getty)

The [whistleblower] inspectors say FAA managers knew about the lapse in safety at Southwest, but decided to allow the airline to conduct the safety checks on a slower schedule because taking "aircraft out of service would have disrupted Southwest Airlines' flight schedule."

According to statements made by one of the FAA inspectors seeking whistle-blower status, a manager at the FAA "permitted the operation of these unsafe aircraft in a matter that would provide relief" to the airline, even though customers were on board.

Laura Brown, an FAA spokeswoman, told CNN that the administration has taken action and that a supervisor who was in charge of overseeing Southwest is "no longer in a supervisory position."

"The FAA penalty is related to one of many routine and redundant inspections on our aircraft fleet involving an extremely small area in one of the many overlapping inspections. These inspections were designed to detect early signs of skin cracking," the airline said in a statement Thursday evening.

"Southwest Airlines discovered the missed inspection area, disclosed it to the FAA, and promptly reinspected all potentially affected aircraft in March 2007. The FAA approved our actions and considered the matter closed as of April 2007."

(Thanks to Tzepish!)

"Records: Southwest Airlines flew 'unsafe' planes " [CNN]
(Photo: Boeing Photo)

Reuters helpfully explains, "Christmas crackers usually contain colored hats, small toys and jokes."

"A far from cracking surprise - a dead mouse" [Reuters]
(Photo: Getty)

The inspections point out one real problem retailers face in isolating and removing recalled products from their inventory—the manufacturers don't always make it easy:

Even after spotting the toy boat and suspecting it matched the one on the recall list, veteran state investigator Frank Carmody had to remove the product from its packaging and search the toy for several minutes before finding the model number on the boat's underside, printed in the same bright orange as the boat and nearly impossible to read. He then had to call the CPSC to verify that the toy he was holding and the one in his binder were the same.

Working with the state, the Monmouth County inspectors field-tested 75 children's items including a butterfly keychain, a backpack and a toddler's touch toy. They sent 16 of the 75 on to an independent lab for further testing; all 16 passed the more extensive test.

"Toy safety tops on NJ inspectors' holiday lists" [Newsday]
(Photo: What Rhymes With Nicole)

The report describes what it calls a "plethora of inadequacies," including:

• inadequate inspections of manufacturers, noting that foodmakers, for example, are inspected about once every 10 years.
• A "badly broken" food-import system and food supply "that grows riskier each year."
• A depleted FDA staff, which is about the same size as it was 15 years ago despite huge growth in agency responsibilities.
• A workforce with a "dearth" of scientists who understand emerging technologies.
• An "obsolete" information-technology system, with handwritten inspectors' reports and "piles and piles" of paper documents that are in warehouses with no backup, including clinical trial data.

"These people were horrified by what they found," [said William Hubbard, a former FDA associate commissioner]. While the subcommittee was supposed to look ahead to where the FDA needs to be, Hubbard says it came away concluding that "it cannot even do its job now."

The White House plan will also increase the power of the CPSC and the FDA (although we assume, based on where they stand philosophically, to a lesser degree than what Congress is proposing), and will cost lots and lots of money. Budget figures will be released after the President makes the formal announcement sometime today.

"White House to Offer Own Plan on Product Safety" [New York Times]
(Photo: Getty)

All of the banned poultry plants were major suppliers of U.S. poultry to Russia and are some of the most efficient facilities in the country, the export council said.

At least three of the poultry plants participate in a model U.S. Agriculture Department program to improve the efficiency of meat and poultry inspections and improve food safety, the council said.

The U.S. poultry industry has about 100 chicken plants and the loss of the 17 processing plants should not greatly disrupt business, said Paul Aho, an economist with the consulting firm Poultry Perspective.

"Russia banning us is not good news. But, it doesn't really influence things too much. There are 100 plants or more and the others ones can send it to Russia," said Aho.

Russia to ban some U.S. chicken/pork [Reuters]
(Photo: nukeit1)

• China's food system is fueled by hundreds of millions of private farms, "many no larger than a basketball court." These small private farms are often their proprietor's sole source of income; productivity is valued over safety.
• China's General Administration of Quality, Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (GAQSIQ) is responsible for export quality control, but most supervision is left to local officials. Of course, "some voiced the opinion that some corruption was evident at the local level."
• "If the Chinese system worked as described, it would be a closed and therefore safe system. Committee staff, however, did not find an American or other multinational executive operating in China who believes that China has a competent, independent inspector stationed at each of the 3,700 plants that, according to Chinese officials, are fully HACCP-controlled. Committee staff also was unable to find anyone who believed that every single lot was sampled. It is further believed that the export certificates are subject to counterfeiting."

And this is the good news. The inspectors originally wanted to visit the two plants responsible for the melamine wheat gluten contamination. In response, the Chinese delayed the investigators' visas. By the time the investigators arrived on site, one plant had been bulldozed. The other was chained-off, its records held by the local police, and thus, confidential.

The team looked to Hong Kong and Japan for regulatory inspiration. In Hong Kong, the government extensively tests food samples and sends inspectors to foreign plants that export high-risk goods. In Japan, 15% of food imports are inspected, but those imports are only accepted from a small number of plants that are inspected annually by the Japanese. The downside to both models is cost, both to the government and to consumers, who pay a premium for quality imported goods.

The investigators believe that an inspection regime backed by adequate resources can improve the safety of our own food supply chain:

The United States, however, needs to sample enough so that detection becomes a deterrent. This will require some multiplying of our current efforts. It will also necessitate significantly more laboratory capacity for FDA.

Food from China: Can We Import Safely? (pdf) [House Energy and Commerce Committee]
(AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

...the import safety panel is expected to push for expanded use of technology to more quickly identify risky imports. Leavitt has supported the use of technology at the border that could read the contents of a sports drink bottle, for example, looking for potentially toxic chemicals without opening it. The FDA is developing a food-safety strategy to be unveiled this fall that would rely on risk-based inspection but has not asked for more resources to pay for more inspections.

Technology Seen as Key To Upgrading Food Safety [Washington Post]
(AP Photo/Katsumi Kasahara)

"In one week we have gone from the largest U.S. manufacturer of frozen hamburgers to a company that cannot overcome the economic reality of a recall this large... We want to thank our loyal employees and customers who have supported us throughout the 67 years in which Topps Meat has been in business," D'Urso said. "Topps has always prided itself on providing the utmost quality and safety and never had a recall in our history until now. This has been a shocking and sobering experience for everyone."

According to the New York Times, Topps was "bought in 2003 by Strategic Investment and Holdings, an investment firm in Buffalo." Reports of sickness from the tainted meat have come from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maine, Florida, Indiana, Ohio and New York.

"Meat Recall Forces Topps Out of Business" [American Agriculturist]
(Photo: Getty)

The Chicago Tribune writes that "the requirement for a USDA inspection and stamp on meat that will be sold interstate hampers sales for smaller meat processors, according to beef industry advocates," and that the state of Minnesota feels its own state inspection procedures are equal to the those of the FDA. However, not all states have quality inspection procedures, or any at all.

The union that represents federal meat inspectors has argued against the measure:

"[It] would seriously endanger food safety by weakening the USDA federal meat and poultry inspection program and by increasing reliance on the more lenient, institutionally weaker state inspection programs — at a time when our nation's food supply is subject to increased risks from both accidental and intentional adulteration."

"Meat recalls point to possibility threat is growing" [USA Today]
"Bill would reduce meat inspections" [Chicago Tribune]
(Photo: Getty)

Heath and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt explains:

We're recommending the implementation of this strategy in six cross-cutting building blocks. Let me review them for you. The first is, advance a common vision. Let me give you some commentary on that point. There are many different organizations who have specific responsibilities. And in some cases, they have different priorities that need to be melded into one common vision. In other words, rather than just looking at whether the border is secure, we also need to make certain that the products that are crossing them are safe and we can use the same technology in many cases to detect both. So a common vision.

The second is increasing accountability enforcement and deterrence. I talk about prevention with verification. Clearly, we need to have strong enforcement. The third building block is focus on the risks over the life cycle of the imported product. I've given you some — that's basically going from a snapshot to a video.

The fourth — and I'll dwell on this a little more — is on building interoperable systems. We found that there were data systems that — used by, for example, the FDA, where an FDA inspector would need to have five passwords to get into five different parts of the FDA system. We found that the Customs and Border Protection would have seven different sections of their system, and neither could access data of the other. We found that there were substantial systems being developed among the shippers and the retail and wholesale community, and they were not integrated. So there is a remarkably important opportunity here to create interoperability among systems, so that we can see the life cycle of the product and have much more efficient capacity to track and to screen and to respond.

The fifth building block is a culture of collaboration. This is not a new problem within any federal or public/private enterprise, being able to break down silos. And sixth, promoting technological innovation with new science. We saw many instances where field tests, for example, were useable for inspectors to make on the spot determination, as opposed to needing to take samples and send them to a lab.

The working group's recommendations can only work in concert with an effective inspection system. It is unreasonable and unaffordable to inspect every item arriving at our ports, but the government should develop a system that both streamlines operations, and holds importers accountable for importing products that comply with our safety laws.

Press Briefing on Import Safety by Heath and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt and National Economic Director Al Hubbard [The White House via AP]
(AP Photo/Harry Rosettani)

• The Department of Health and the Consumer Protection Board will inspect retailers to ensure compliance with all recalls;
• Day care providers will be required to remove all recalled toys;
• The Department of Health will send notices to pediatricians reminding them to tell parents about the dangers of lead poisoning;
• The state will coordinate Toy Testing Days in November, which is apparently toy safety awareness month;
• 
  The Governor has also called upon the Legislature to impose civil and criminal fines against anyone who sells recalled toys after the announcement of a recall. New York's response should serve as a model to other states offended by the CPSC's negligent resistance to adequate funds or authority. It is unfortunate that the federal government must be goaded into action by states that have neither the capacity nor the mandate to uniformly protect American consumers.

  Governor Spitzer Acts To Protect New York Children From Lead-Poisoning Threat In Toys (Press Release) [New York State]
  (Photo: Getty)

Rather than contract its manufacturing out to the lowest bidder, Mattel owns the factories that assemble their toys destined for export. The integrity of the supply chain is paramount:

Elisha Chan, the director of product integrity and corporate responsibility, is charged with guarding against dangerous defects like lead-based paint. Suppliers are closely monitored, he says, and sending in fake or tainted supplies is a ticket to losing the contract with Mattel. And some vendors have, says Mr. Chan.

Professor Johnson of Dartmouth visited the Guanyao factory while it was under construction. "I was impressed that they were spending a lot more time and money building dorms," he said, comparing the factory with those of other companies. "Mattel's China partner working to build that factory could not understand why they'd be wasting this money on all these things."

Mattel says that it can control the quality of its toys better because it owns factories like this one. Before the company approves any of its new toys — some 5,000 each year — it produces small batches.

Once full-scale production begins, toys are pulled off the line periodically and supplies are tested as they come in the door.

Mattel's defeat at the hands of the Chinese Poison Train is a significant setback for our confidence in the ability of American companies to vouch for the quality of their imported goods. If Mattel isn't able to protect their goods, even with a system specifically designed to mitigate the risks of manufacturing in China, we're not sure what measures will keep the Chinese Poison Train at bay.

Toymaking in China, Mattel's Way [NYT]