Food Insight recently talked with two federal officials responsible for the safety of the U.S. food supply, Dr. Lester Crawford of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Dr. Elsa Murano of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). This article provides a transcript of that conversation, in which these two officials answered questions about various aspects of the safety of the U.S. food supply. The next issue of Food Insight will provide their comments on the global challenges facing the safety of the food supply.

Q: Overall how would you describe the current state of the safety of the U.S. food supply?

Murano: It is the safest in the world, and I can tell you that with all confidence. We have by far the lowest incidence of foodborne illness, but it is not perfect.

Crawford: The food supply can certainly be described as safe, and it is far safer than it ever has been. There's still some room for improvement, and this is mostly in the area of microbiological contamination.

Q: What would you consider the greatest threats to food safety?

Murano: It continues to be microbial because those organisms are in nature and very difficult to avoid having in food. Raw food can be contaminated with some of these organisms.

Crawford: It is quite clear that the majority of foodborne disease is now caused by viruses, and many of those are not detectable in food. They are an unknown quantity and we need to get more serious about them. For example, until maybe 20 years ago we never heard of Norwalk virus, which apparently causes about 50 percent of the foodborne disease cases in the U.S. and in most other countries.

Q: Our own research indicates that consumers are most concerned about microbial threats to their food. What additional measures need to be taken to reduce these threats?

Murano: We have taken HACCP (the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point system) and utilized it to minimize the introduction of contaminants into ground beef, meat, or poultry production. We issued a directive in March where we talked about encouraging ground beef processors to either use a decontamination step or require the suppliers of trimmings to use such steps. These are the kinds of policies that we believe are really going to make a big difference.

The Healthy People 2010 initiative calls for a reduction by 50 percent of foodborne illnesses. We are committed to that. The way to do these things is to try to eliminate, not try to chase the organism, because you could never test enough.

Crawford: We need institutions like the National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and others, to make foodborne viruses a high priority. I'm afraid if we don't we will find ourselves as far behind as we were in the early 1980s with foodborne bacteria like salmonella and listeria.

Q: Do you believe food irradiation is a viable means to ensure food safety? If so, can the flavor and quality of meats and produce be maintained after irradiation?

Murano: I do. It is a fact backed up by data from research that's been conducted over the last 50 years, not only in the United States but all over the world. It can be applied to products in the raw state without changing that state, so it has an advantage over some of the other strategies that might be available, such as high pressure processing, which tends to cook the product slightly.

By minimizing the dose and by applying it on the product when it is refrigerated, you minimize any changes in quality, and there have been numerous studies to show that will yield a product that is not only high quality but indistinguishable from the non-irradiated product. If you don't apply it properly, meaning the dose and temperature combination, you can certainly ruin the quality.

Crawford: I suspect that careful research and development, and the use of some of the new techniques of sensory and taste physiology will enable us to get over the quality obstacle. There will always be a few things that are not going to taste as good once they've been irradiated, but some people also say that about canned foods.

Q: Where does consumer education fit into your priorities?

Murano: It is one of my top five goals. It is very, very important to me because I realize that consumers have a lot of power. They have the power to prepare the food properly and therefore protect their families from foodborne illness by doing something very simple, which is to cook the food at the right internal temperature, especially in the case of meats such as ground beef. Also, they have the power to not introduce contaminants into the food they serve their families by keeping their kitchen clean. Our Meat and Poultry Hotline is now in Spanish as well as English. We had a food safety education conference in September 2002 in Orlando, geared for educators to develop strategies that work in spreading the message of food safety. We are partnering with the Food and Nutrition Service to match the message of food safety with good nutrition. We realize that they touch the lives of millions of people through the food stamp program, the school lunch program, and the WIC program (Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children).

Crawford: I still believe that the great majority of foodborne disease can be traced to accidents in the home or lack of sanitation once the food is purchased from the store or brought in from the garden or wherever. And we still haven't gotten to the point to where we have a practical Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point system in the home.

I believe the HACCP system can provide a structure for food safety education, and unless and until we do that, I think we'll still be talking about this 10, 20, 30 years from now and we'll not have made much progress in changing the thought pattern, lifestyle, and food preparation techniques in the home and in institutions.

Q: Which aspect of your position do you enjoy most?

Murano: I enjoy traveling outside of D.C. to visit "real" America, to visit with people—such as when we've held grilling events to encourage food safety. We've gone to senior centers and schools to teach people of all ages about food safety and explain to them what meat inspection is all about and how we work to ensure the safety of meat and poultry. If we stay within the Beltway too long, we start to get a very narrow view of the world.

We talk about consumer education but we have to continually remind consumers that they need to wash their hands, keep their kitchen clean—number one. Number two—cook their foods to the appropriate internal temperature. If they don't know what that is, they can simply call our Meat and Poultry Hotline (1-800-535-4555 or 202-720-5604). Number three they should make sure that they don't cross contaminate cooked food with raw juices of products that were raw. Fourth—that they refrigerate their food, including leftovers, promptly, within two hours. That's a message that I keep repeating as often as I can, wherever I go.

Crawford: I think it's the overall management of the system. FDA is interlinked with virtually all the countries in the U.N. system and with the international organizations. But more importantly, in the U.S., we are linked with state and local governments. And in virtually every geopolitical entity within the United States system we have personnel that are there. And managing all that into a network that provides maximum safety and security for the citizens of our country requires a great deal of oversight, coordination, management, and hopefully providence. So that's the part that I enjoy the most.

Watch for discussion of global food safety issues with Drs. Crawford and Murano in the next issue of Food Insight.