President Obama's State of the Union address Tuesday night didn't include significant mentions of food or agriculture, but what he did bring up regarding the inadequate structure of government agencies, or Regulatory Chaos as we like to call it, has major play in the areas FIC serves.

From Obama's speech:

We live and do business in the information age, but the last major reorganization of the government happened in the age of black and white TV. There are twelve different agencies that deal with exports. There are at least five different entities that deal with housing policy. Then there’s my favorite example: the Interior Department is in charge of salmon while they’re in fresh water, but the Commerce Department handles them in when they’re in saltwater. And I hear it gets even more complicated once they’re smoked.

The example of how salmon regulation is split up sounds very familiar to those involved in food policy. The inconsistencies between USDA and FDA regulations are quite ridiculous, with spinach and other produce waiting years for an FDA inspection, while meat and poultry plants have USDA visits on a daily basis. And that's just a little glimpse of the seemingly random set-up of our food system maintenance.

(Washington, D.C.) – Today, the Government Accountability Project (GAP) is praising Congress for passing the most comprehensive whistleblower protections for food industry workers in history. A provision in the Food Safety Modernization Act, passed today by the House and expected to be signed by President Obama, provides sweeping protections for corporate employees who report any food violations enforced by the FDA.

"These whistleblower protection provisions are a monumental change in public health protection, and a huge win for food safety," said GAP Food Integrity Campaign (FIC) Director Amanda Hitt. "Whistleblower rights don’t get any stronger than this. Without a doubt, these protections will allow more workers to come forward before outbreaks, which will save lives and enhance food integrity. Lawmakers who made this happen should be commended for standing up for public health."

The protections only extend to corporate workers who report violations of FDA regulations -- not to violations of USDA regulations, which cover the meat and poultry industries. On this point, GAP Legal Director Tom Devine added: “There is no rational excuse to protect corporate workers challenging violations of FDA food safety laws while allowing them to keep getting fired at will for defending USDA food safety laws.”

Our Food Integrity Campaign (FIC) is officially under way. We hope you’ll visit our new FIC website and join our campaign to safeguard food integrity by facilitating truth-telling. In addition to providing litigation services for employees who speak out against safety or health violations, GAP’s Campaign brings their stifled concerns to the public eye as well as provides education outreach and advocacy efforts. The website profiles some of GAP’s prominent food integrity whistleblowers, serves as a hub of information for would-be whistleblowers and those interested in food integrity and whistleblower issues in general. It also provides useful information on what you can do to support food industry whistleblowers.

Along the journey that food takes from field to fork, problems arise every step of the way and we mean to expose them by fueling the voice of the voiceless. FIC believes that food industry whistleblowers are the first line of defense against foodborne illness and outbreaks—the employees that actually work at the food processing facilities, either for the company or as an inspector assigned by the government. Yet they go unheard. If they get up the courage to blow the whistle at a plant they work at, these workers often face retaliation or their complaints are simply ignored. If whistleblowers feel protected (hopefully under the law as well as among the community), it will be more difficult for agribusinesses to maintain their questionable practices as more people step up to push food transparency.

FIC's website spotlights whistleblowers who have spoken out against violations of food integrity acts. Some that have lost their jobs for speaking up were able to publicize their concerns with the help of GAP. Others were protected from termination because of strong evidence GAP helped release to the media.

In addition to exploring food.whistleblower.org to learn more about problems in today's food system and our work with whistleblowers, you can also be part of the cause by following our campaign on Twitter @foodinteg and joining us on Facebook. We need your energy and support to keep this movement moving forward and solidify committed solutions that will enable confident providers and consumers of our nation's food.

Sarah Damian is Social and New Media Fellow for the Government Accountability Project, the nation's leading whistleblower advocacy organization.

Saying that American food safety would improve if federal employees serving the food system had strong whistleblower protections – allowing them to reveal agency violations – seems like common sense if you ask me. Thanks to GAP coalition partner Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), a new survey of USDA and FDA employees confirms this belief.

Over 1,700 scientists and inspectors responded to the UCS 44-question survey about what helps and hinders our food system. An overwhelming majority (70 percent!) said establishing stronger whistleblower protections for inspectors, regulators and food industry workers would improve food safety. Only two percent disagreed with this. In addition to that, more than 300 federal employee respondents affirmed that corporate interests forced their agency "to withdraw or significantly modify a policy or action designed to protect consumers in the past year." Many even said agency managers asked them to provide incomplete, inaccurate or misleading information.

If, in fact, USDA and FDA employees did feel protected under the law to speak out when their agencies failed to uphold food safety regulations, then a burning question must be asked – How many of the 85 recalls reported in the last year could have been prevented? Whistleblowers risk heavy consequences when trying to go up against the seemingly unbreakable corporate-government love affair that is the current U.S. food system. With more accountability power, perhaps government inspectors would have listened to GAP client Kenneth Kendrick – who tried to blow the whistle on Peanut Corp.'s health violations prior to the massive Salmonella outbreak last year. Or maybe USDA veterinarian Dean Wyatt would not have been penalized for exposing inhumane handling of animals at various plants in 2007. The list goes on.

The UCS report reinforces the need for new food safety legislation. It's no question that more regulation needs to take effect to ensure safe food for consumers. But making sure those who play a role in the food system have rights that help maintain such regulation is also essential. The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act that is currently stuck in the Senate includes a provision that establishes whistleblower protections for employees of entities "engaged in the manufacture, processing, packing, transporting, distribution, reception, holding, or importation of food" who provide information relating to any violation of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. Until a bill is passed that protects these employees, our food system continues to hang in the balance. Send a letter now urging your representative to support stronger whistleblower protections.

To learn more about other food safety recommendations concluded in the survey, go to the UCS website.

Sarah Damian is Social and New Media Fellow for the Government Accountability Project, the nation's leading whistleblower advocacy organization.

The Vermont Attorney General announced today that arrest warrants have been issued for former Bushway Packing, Inc. owner Frank Peretta and former Bushway worker Christopher Gaudette on charges of animal cruelty in the Bushway case. The case attracted national attention last fall, when the Humane Society of the United States released shocking video footage of operations at Bushway showing animals being repeatedly stunned with electrical prods, too weak to stand on their own, and stabbed for bloodletting while still conscious.

However, while the Humane Society footage spurred action, GAP client and USDA Public Health Veterinarian Dr. Dean Wyatt had been warning of problems at Bushway for months before. As detailed in Dr. Wyatt’s testimony earlier this year in front of the Domestic Policy Subcommittee of the House Committee on Government Oversight and Reform, Dr. Wyatt had attempted to stop inhumane handling practices not only at Bushway, but also at his previous assignment at the Seaboard pork plant in Guymon, Oklahoma. How did Dr. Wyatt’s supervisors at the USDA Food Safety Inspection Service react? They overturned his reports of animal cruelty based solely on the word of plant ownership, they forced him out of his job in Oklahoma, and the Director of the Office of Field Operations for FSIS even wrote a letter to Congress calling Dr. Wyatt “incompetent” for his charges of animal cruelty.

Fortunately for Dr. Wyatt, the Humane Society video tape vindicated his charge that there was something very wrong in the way Bushway was treating its animals. To the credit of USDA leadership, once the video evidence became clear, the agency was very aggressive in taking action on Bushway in conjunction with state and federal law enforcement.

GAP is happy to see real consequences for the people who engaged in animal abuse at Bushway. However, not every whistleblower is lucky enough to have an independent secret videotape investigation to surface and support his or her claims. How many others like Dean Wyatt are out there, being ignored and marginalized for speaking out against industry interests?

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Jonathan Cantú is Food and Public Health Counsel at the Government Accountability Project, the nation's leading whistleblower advocacy organization.

After July 1, all ground beef purchased by the National School Lunch Program will be required to be as safe as ground beef used by fast food chains, according to new standards announced by the USDA.

The stricter standards follow a 2009 investigation by USA Today that found safety standards set by the Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS), a part of the USDA that buys meat for school lunches, were lower than those set by many fast food restaurants. The investigation found cases in which the AMS bought ground beef that retailers and fast-food chains would have rejected because of high amounts of so-called indicator bacteria – which can indicate an increased probability that the product contains dangerous pathogens.

In addition, the investigation found that the AMS testing procedures for ground beef are sorely deficient. Regardless of how long the production day runs, AMS combines eight samples of school-bound ground beef for a single combined pathogen test. That means 100,000 pounds of ground beef could be tested only once for pathogens. In comparison, many fast food chains take samples of their ground beef every 15 minutes and test the combined sample every one or two hours. So, basically, a fast food restaurant tests their ground beef five to 10 times more often than the USDA tests school lunch beef. Thankfully, the new school lunch standards will require that AMS test their ground beef at the same rate as fast food restaurants.

The investigation also found that the school lunch program purchases tons of chicken for schools that KFC or the Campbell Soup Company wouldn't use. The chicken bought by the USDA might otherwise go to compost or pet food if it weren't being eaten by schoolchildren.

Children are uniquely vulnerable to foodborne illness because of their still developing immune systems, and many strains that would be a nuisance for adults can prove life-threatening for them. According to the CDC, at least 23,000 children were sickened from eating school lunch food from 1988 through 2007. However, the CDC believes that many more cases go unreported.

As Senator Kristen Gillibrand (D-NY), an advocate of school lunch reform put it:

"Our schools and parents have a right to know where food is coming from and whether it's high-quality. I don't know why we're not putting better protections in place for our most vulnerable population. We have to reform how we feed our children in schools."

USA Today, which should be commended for its work, also found many other problems with school lunch safety during its examination of the program last year.

An interesting article in the New York Times today discusses the rise of the phrase "If You See Something, Say Something," which is prominently seen throughout the New York City subway system, and has spread to other public transportation systems around the world. The slogan also includes the phone number for a counter-terrorism unit.

According to the article, a New York advertising executive wrote the slogan on September 12, 2001, before the Metro Transit Authority, a former client, even asked for a new phrase to respond to the to the World Trade Center attacks. The executive says of the slogan:

“I’m proud of what it’s done and the potential it has to do more. Some things you just can’t stop. But if it is stoppable, and that thought makes someone think twice and say something that stops something, that’s its reason for being.”

Which got us here at GAP thinking, what if this slogan was posted on the wall in workplaces around the world, instead of just in transportation systems?

What if society encouraged workers to blow the whistle on fraud, waste, and bureaucratic carelessness, as enthusiastically as it encouraged people to report a suspicious package?

According to the CDC, an estimated 76 million Americans endure foodborne illness every year. Of those 76 million people, up to 9,000 die. Simply for comparison’s sake, 2,669 Americans perished in the horrific September 11 attacks.

However, when GAP clients have seen wrongdoing and said something about dangerous handling of food product, they have faced retaliation and backlash, and even public disdain.

On March 25, 2010, Senator Jon Tester introduced the Meat Safety and Accountability Act or Traceback Act. The bill can largely be attributed to years of advocacy by former GAP client and whistleblower, John Munsell, who has steadfastly demanded that mega-slaughterhouses be held accountable for distributing tainted products to downstream grinders, retailers, and processors.

The Traceback Act requires the USDA to “trace back” harmful foodborne pathogens, namely E.coli and Salmonella, to the slaughterhouse of origin. Current USDA testing detects most of the positives at destination facilities (retail stores, restaurants, cafeterias, etc.); however, the vast majority of the contamination actually occurs upstream at the slaughterhouses as a result of fecal contamination associated with the slaughter process.

Munsell, a small grinder and owner of the family business Montana Quality Foods, Inc., sought GAP’s assistance in 2002 when the USDA failed to act on evidence that ConAgra foods was shipping beef to his facility that was contaminated with E. coli. Regrettably, not only did the USDA fail to regulate ConAgra, the Agency actually blamed Munsell for accepting the beef, had him re-write his HACCP plan 14 times, and suspended his meat grinding privileges. Instead of following up on Munsell’s evidence of wrong-doing by an industry giant, the USDA responded by harassing Munsell’s small meat packing company out of business.

GAP authored a report in 2002 based on Munsell’s experiences.

Munsell is one step closer to protecting both the public’s health and small business from the grips of industry giants. With any luck, Tester’s bill will take on the mega-slaughter plants that have had a stranglehold on the industry. The Meat Safety and Accountability Act is proof that the tenacity of one whistleblower can upset the balance of power between small business and the powerful meat lobby. GAP continues its support of Munsell and looks forward to the passage of the Traceback Act.

USDA whistleblower and GAP client Dean Wyatt testified yesterday before the House Subcommittee on Domestic Policy (under Oversight and Government Reform). Wyatt, a supervisory veterinarian at the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) reported shocking mistreatment and unsafe butchering of animals at two slaughterhouses. His disclosures raise serious concerns about the state of American food integrity.

For more info on the case and allegations, check out GAP’s press release here, or the USA Today story or Washington Post piece.

Wyatt’s testimony paints a terrible picture of FSIS as being, in many cases, more interested in keeping corporations happy than protecting public safety.

But Wyatt’s isn’t the only major food safety story to appear over the last couple of days (shocking, I know).

This serious problem of ammonia-infused beef (which is not required to be labeled as such), was discussed over a year ago in an op-ed by GAP Public Health Associate Amanda Hitt. GAP worked with the reporter on this story.

By Michael Moss

Eight years ago, federal officials were struggling to remove potentially deadly E. coli from hamburgers when an entrepreneurial company from South Dakota came up with a novel idea: injecting beef with ammonia.