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I just sent a letter to the Food and Drug Administration asking them to increase their efforts to keep food safe from salmonella and other food safety issues. For the second time in as many years, peanut butter contaminated with deadly salmonella has been recalled.


This latest outbreak, tracked back to the now-bankrupt the Peanut Corporation of America, has caused nearly 655 illnesses, and contributed to nine deaths. Parents have suffered through two massive recalls of tainted peanut products in the past two years. That's two recalls too many. We shouldn't have to worry whether what's in our fridge is a healthy snack or dangerous to our children. Act now to demand food safety reforms. All peanut companies-and all food processors in this country -- must use top-notch safety practices to protect our families from food bourne health risks.

Will you send a letter to the FDA urging them to take action to keep our kids safe when eating sandwiches?

This isn't the first time peanut manufacturers have been in trouble. Back in 2007, another salmonella outbreak forced the recall of Peter Pan peanut butter by manufacturer ConAgra. Only after the recall did ConAgra invest $50 million into improving safety standards at their manufacturing plant. But the events of this last month prove we can't trust each individual manufacturer to fix this problem on their own. We need real reform.

Thanks for your help on improving the safety of America's children. Together, we can get this done.

P.S. This FDA website will keep you up to date on which peanut butter and other products are affected by the recall.

P.P.S What they really need to do is break the FDA into two different administrations. One which focuses on drugs and drug devices and the other which focuses on just food. But what do I know.

Labels: FDA, peanut butter

DelSite Biotechnologies, Inc., its wholly-owned subsidiary, received the approval from the FDA of the Investigational New Drug (IND) application to initiate a Phase I clinical study of the Company's lead product candidate GelVac(TM) nasal powder H5N1 (bird flu) influenza vaccine.

It is preservative-free, adjuvant-free and can stabilize vaccines at room temperature for a long period of time. The vaccine requires no cold chain and allows needle-free administration.

Dr. Yawei Ni, Chief Scientific Officer of DelSite Biotechnologies, said, "The GelVac is a very innovative and effective powder platform; besides deliverable as a nasal powder, GelVac powder vaccines can be reconstituted and administered using classical needle technology. Using this route of administration a strong antigen-sparing effect, i.e., increasing numbers of vaccine doses, is created by a classical depot effect. We believe the paradigm shift under way as to how vaccines are to be stored, shipped and administered will be accelerated by the GelVac platform."

This vaccine candidate is believed to be the only nasal powder vaccine under development that, if approved, could be shipped without refrigeration to peoples' homes and self-administered in the event of a pandemic outbreak of avian bird flu.

After administering one or two doses to test subjects at the highest dose tested,
testing results showed the vaccine is safe and nontoxic. I for one would still like a break down of what is in the vaccine.

Of course far more research will be done in the clinical studies, but DelSite is thrilled at the FDA approval of Phase I.

Whether or not this approval will help DelSite Biotechnologies get more funding is still yet to be seen, for now they have discontinued manufacturing operations.

Labels: avian flu, FDA, press release, vaccines

This morning's news around the country s sharing the same story. The "FDA Warns Consumers Nationwide Not to Eat Certain Types of Raw Red Tomatoes".

FDA recommends that consumers not eat raw red Roma, raw red plum, raw red round tomatoes, or products that contain these types of raw red tomatoes unless the tomatoes are from the sources listed below. If unsure of where tomatoes are grown or harvested, consumers are encouraged to contact the store where the tomato purchase was made.

Folks, this means you should NOT buy any sandwiches with tomatoes at any restaurant either. Ask them to remove that slice of tomato from your burger! Man, and burgers are half price at Deer Park on Tuesday. Bah! Bah humburger!

On June 5, using traceback and other distribution pattern information, FDA published a list of states, territories, and countries where tomatoes are grown and harvested which have not been associated with this outbreak. This updated list includes: Arkansas, California, Georgia, Hawaii, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Belgium, Canada, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Israel, Netherlands, and Puerto Rico. Be sure to keep checking back to the FDA site to see what has been added to the list.

Labels: FDA, recall, tomato