Newly Released State Documents Highlight Need For Gilbert’s TDA Reform Plan

8/9/2019 Newly Released State Documents Highlight Need For Gilberts TDA Reform Plan

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

August 19, 2010

CONTACT: Vince Leibowitz

512.705.7001

[email protected]

Newly Released State Documents Highlight Need For Gilberts

TDA Reform Plan

DSHS Documents Highlight Gaps In Food Safety System In Texas

TYLERSeveral recently released state documents highlight alarming gaps in

Texas food safety system and highlight the need for food safety reforms recentlyproposed by Hank Gilbert, the Texas Democratic Partys nominee for Agriculture

Commissioner, as part of his plan to restructure the Texas Department of Agriculture.

According to the documents released to the Gilbert campaign by the Texas

Department of State Health Services in response to a public information request,

numerous gaps exist in the food safety system as food makes its way from farms toconsumers dinner tables and lunchboxes.

In one document, a briefing paper prepared to address food safety gaps followingtwo nationwide salmonella outbreaks in 2008 and 2009 involving Texas food

manufacturing or distribution entities, DSHS contends that the outbreaks have brought

to light a number of gaps in the food safety system in this state.Among gaps along the farm to fork continuum identified by DSHS include:

--Many food manufacturers unlicensed by DSHS who deliberately or

accidentally fail to obtain a license are licensedby other state agenciesincluding the Texas Department of Agriculture, the Texas Secretary of

State, or the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts.

--Distributors of fresh, uncut produce are exempt from DSHS licensingrequirements and FDA standards.

--Businesses that repackage but do not process fresh, uncut produce are

exempt from DSHS licensing requirements and FDA standards.
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]


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--With the exception of milk, seafood, and meat, no state regulationexists relating to the transport of food products.

--Food manufacturers and distributors arent required to test theirproducts for pathogens causing human disease (excluding some

exceptions such as milk, meat, and bottled water).

--Food manufacturers who voluntarily test for disease-causing pathogens

arent required to report positive test results to the state.

Additional documents released by the Department of State Health Services

relating to salmonella tainted peanuts processed at the Plainview, Texas facility of Peanut

Corporation of Americaone of two PCA plants at the epicenter of a 2008-2009salmonella outbreakshow confusion over whether or not specific state agencies possess

the authority to inspect farms, that the Deputy Commissioner of the Texas Department of

Agriculture was calling a state agency to determine if a municipality had licensed the

PCA Plainview facility, and significant confusion over what state agency mayor maynothave been inspecting agricultural products for salmonella contamination near the

Texas-Oklahoma border in the days and weeks following the recall.In one e-mail exchange dated February 25, 2010, the manager for Policy,

Standards, and Quality Assurance at DSHSs Division for Regulator Services contacted

the TDA Deputy Commissioner to inquire if TDA had inspectors with badges stopping

trucks along the Texas-Oklahoma border testing produce for salmonella.In his reply, TDAs Deputy Commissioner fully illustrated both the complicated

and confusing food safety bureaucracy that presently exists in Texas as well as the

failures of the Texas Department of Agriculture to take any significant steps to protect thestates food supply:

We are not operating a road inspection station in Grayson County alongthe border.These road stations run for 72 hours straight and we are NOT

sampling for salmonella. We do inspect all trucks with produce and we

only pull samples in instances where a plant health issue is suspected.TDAs Deputy Commissioner wrote [emphasis added].

In an email from DSHSs Food And Drug Safety Officer to other DSHS

employees dated February 13, it becomes clear that high-level TDA employees were insuch a state of confusion over the Plainview peanut debacle that they didnt even appear

to understand where municipal food facility permitting records would be kept. According

to the e-mail, TDAs Deputy Commissioner called the Food and Drug Safety Officer atDSHS to ask if the Plainview PCA facility had ever been licensed by the city of

Plainviewinstead, evidently, of realizing that this information was maintained by the

city itself. DSHS employees called the city and reported the information back to TDA.In in a string of emails spanning a month from March 2 until April 2, TDAs

Deputy Commissioner contacted DSHS on behalf of Agriculture Commissioner Todd

Staples concerning a situation in Oregon in which it was alleged bulk peanuts from Texas

were contaminated with Salmonella. Although the Plainview peanut debacle was still in


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full swing, the Deputy Commissioner of TDA wrote Dr. David Lackey, Commissioner of

the Department of State Health Services asking is it possible or probable to have

salmonella on unprocessed nuts?In a later exchange, further confusion abounds when the Deputy Commissioner

tells Lackey he thought state law prohibited DSHS from conducting inspections on the

farm, and inquires about Lee County Peanut, inquiring, Is Lee County Peanut not afarm?

Closing the exchange, Lackey writes back to TDA that the department did

investigate at Lee County Peanut, it was indeed a farm, and that the inspection was theresult of a separate regulated activity conducted on the farmpeanut shelling. Lackey

wrote:

Due to our responsibility to protect public health, we have broadauthority relating to compliance activitiesAgain, we would not

typically be on a farm unless they were conducting a regulated

activity or unless we were investigating an outbreak or food safety

issue that led us there.

Finally, in an email exchange that Hank Gilbert classifies as stunning, thenumber one bureaucrat in charge at TDA under Commissioner Todd Staples is engaging

in an email exchange with various high-level DSHS officials to attempt to coordinate the

Texas Department of Agricultures revocation of an organic certification for the plant. I

am REALLY hopeful that we can issue a revocation of a certification that this plantcarries with us SIMULTANEOUS to your recall announcement. Is there anyway I can

even get an email confirmation of the terminology of what your inspector found? It is

essential to our revocation order, the official writes. This email came days after the planthad voluntarily shut its doors following laboratory tests indicating the presence of

salmonella.

These documents clearly show that Texas food supply is at risk, Gilbert said.The patchwork quilt of regulation that exists for food safety is confusing and has gaping

holes in it, he continued. DSHS has pointed out six major vulnerabilities that exist with

regard to food safety, and the logical way to remedy these problems is by combining foodsafety and regulation under the Texas Department of Agriculture while removing

bureaucracy and confusion from the process, he said.

Texans need to know that, from field to fork, their food is safe. Moms and dads

need to know that the fruit, lunchmeat, and even packaged or processed foods they areputting in their childs lunchbox every day arent contaminated with disease causing

pathogens that will make their child sick or worse, Gilbert continued.

The time for finger pointing and playing the blame game is over. Under myreform plan, well take a common sense approach to food safety in Texas by centralizing

regulation and inspection under one agency and, by reducing the size of the bureaucracy,

and being able to put more inspectors on the streets and in the fields, he continued.Here, we have an email where the head bureaucrat in the Texas Department of

Agriculture is telling the head of the Department of State Health Services that they only

test produce when the health of a plant is questioned. Thats unacceptable. We need

common sense reform that puts the safety of Texans first, he continued.


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Addressing the Plainview related emails, Gilbert said he was astounded. It looks

more like TDA was concerned about getting earned media by making its revocation

simultaneous with DSHSs recall announcement than actually revoking PCAs organiccertification. TDA didnt need this information from DSHS. Federal regulations allow

them to undertake their own investigation of an organic certified plant and provide

provisions for revocation and denial of certification for which the findings published tothat point would have been sufficient, Gilbert said, referring to 7 CFR Sec. 205.661 and

other provisions of the Code of Federal Regulations.

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