|  |  | **Food Safety and Inspection    Service    United States Department of Agriculture    Washington, D.C. 20250-3700** |
|--|--|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

##### Consumer Information

###### Vol. 3, Number 3

## The Food Safety Educator

### September! The Kids--and BAC!-- Are Back

Kids are going back to school, it’s National Food Safety Education Month (ServiceMark), the Fight BAC!TM campaign is heading toschools--and it’s all happening in September.

**    The National Food Safety Education Month(SM)** themeis "Keep it Clean--The First Step to Food Safety." The "Clean" messageis one of the four key messages in the Fight BAC!TMcampaign. 

    National Food Safety Education Month(SM) was started four years agoby the International Food Safety Council, an arm of the National RestaurantAssociation’s Educational Foundation.

    Educational packets supporting the "Clean" message arebeing distributed to restaurants and food service operators through the EducationalFoundation.

    In addition, this year, as part of the President’s Food SafetyInitiative, federal agencies are working to bring National Food Safety Education Month(SM)to the nation’s school children along with the Fight BAC!TMcampaign.

    **A new food safety poster has been developed** and isbeing sent to school food service managers in more than 50,000 elementary schools. Theposter features a cartoon of the Fight BAC!TM characterand teaches kids about the "Clean" message and handwashing.

    The reverse side of the four-color poster pictures the Fight BAC!TM campaign’s four key messages:

> - CLEAN. Wash hands and surfaces often.
- SEPARATE. Don’t cross-contaminate.
- COOK. Cook to proper temperatures.
- CHILL. Refrigerate promptly.

    After National Food Safety Education Month(SM), schools can simplyflip the poster over and the food safety messages can keep on working.

    The poster was developed cooperatively by the U.S. Department ofAgriculture’s (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), the Food and DrugAdministration (FDA) and the American School Food Service Association. 

    USDA’s Cooperative State Research, Education, and ExtensionService is also pitching in and will be distributing an additional 19,000 copies of theposter to its cooperators.

    "We knew it was time to get BAC into the schools and this isour first step," according to Susan Conley, director of the FSIS food safetyeducation and communications staff.

    But the poster is only one part of what’s happening inSeptember.

    **FDA and FSIS have assembled a 24-page Planning Guide forFood Safety Educators.** The guide will be mailed to 12,000 educators nationwideincluding extension agents as well as county health departments. 

    The Planning Guide includes suggestions for National Food SafetyEducation Month(SM) activities as well as a variety of reproducible resources including afood safety quiz, word games and coloring pages.

    To access the Planning Guide or check on other National Food SafetyEducation Month(SM) activities, go to: www.foodsafety.gov/September

### Reaching Kids

Children are identified by the President’s Food Safety Initiative as ahigh-priority group to receive food safety education.

    The question is: What's the best way to reach kids?

    To answer that question, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) andFood Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) contracted with Macro International to produce areport that would guide planning of future K-12 food safety education initiatives. Thetitle: ***USDA/FDA Education Initiative: Evaluating the Placement of Food SafetyEducation in Schools***. 

    Most experts interviewed agreed that food safety is an importanttopic for students to study, but that it is "not a priority issue" at present.Nearly everyone agreed that middle school grades were the most appropriate place for foodsafety messages.

    Interviewees said that activities need to be hands-on in order toengage students. They also agreed that students were interested in their own health and,from that point of view, food safety was likely to be well received. Other observationsinclude:

> - Family/consumer science classes provide an ideal setting  for food      safety education. The down side--not all students are required to take these classes.
- To reach the most students, science seems to offer the most promise .      The report notes that food safety messages would be more likely to be adopted by science      teachers if they were modified to emphasize the "science" behind the message. 

    The report’s summary is available through the Internet: www.foodsafety.gov/~dms/fseduini.html

### New Education Standards Include Food Safety

Safe food handling is a key component of new national standards for schools offeringfamily and consumer science programs.

    The new standards include a component called "Nutrition, FoodSafety and Wellness." The standards were released by the National Association ofState Administrators for Family and Consumer Sciences (an affiliate of the AmericanVocational Association).

    **With these standards, the structure will be in place toteach safe food handling in appropriate family and consumer science classes,**according to Laura Fox of the FSIS food safety education and communications staff.

    While the standards are not mandatory, states will be able to adoptthem completely or in part. 

    "But regardless of what states choose to do, the food safetystandards will be there on the table, a topic to be discussed. The standards are the modelthat curriculum developers and textbook writers will go to in order to begin theprocess," according to Marjorie Davidson, FDA food safety education officer.

    **Over the past several years, numerous studies have stressedthe importance of reaching children with food safety education.**

    There are a number of reasons why this is of growing importance.More children are handling and preparing food on their own. Children are more susceptibleto foodborne disease because their immune systems are not fully developed. Finally, theexperts agree, children are at the "teachable moment" for safe food handling.

    According to Fox, the food safety standards mirror the farm-to-tablefocus of the President’s Food Safety Initiative. "We wanted children to be ableto see where food comes from, how it’s produced and how food safety is important ateach step along the way to their dinner table," Fox said.

The food safety component of the new national standards allows students to: - Evaluate the factors affecting food safety  from production through    marketing,
- Analyze foodborne illness  as a health issue for individuals and    families, and
- Demonstrate safe food handling.

    Involvement with the model curriculum came about as a result ofresearch into the placement of food safety education in schools. 

    "Through our research efforts we learned that the nationalstandards for family and consumer sciences were in the process of being drafted. As aresult of our contact, we were able to help broaden the scope of the standards to includefood safety," Fox said.

For a copy of the model standards, contact: 

Judith Hetherly   3732 Steck Avenue  Austin, TX 78758  Email: [email protected]  Website: www.facse.org
New FDA Survey Reveals Consumer Concerns
Consumer concern about "germs" in food has increased by 60 percent over thepast 5 years, according to Alan Levy of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Speakingat a USDA/FDA teleconference in May 1998, Levy called this increase one of thesurvey’s "most surprising findings." 

    FDA’s last consumer survey was conducted in 1993. That wasprior to the *E. coli* O157:H7 outbreak in the Northwest states that claimed thelives of four children. At that time, 38 percent of consumers considered germs a seriousproblem in food. Today, that figure stands at 55 percent. 

    Levy noted that the percent of consumers concerned about antibioticresistance has also increased dramatically, doubling from 8 percent in 1993 to 16 percenttoday.

    The new FDA survey was conducted between February and April of thisyear. It represents a random sample of U.S. adults and was conducted by telephone with2,001 people. As Levy noted, the new survey allows us to see how consumer attitudes,concerns and behaviors have changed over the past 5 years.

    **The survey shows that consumers are very aware of some kindsof foodborne pathogens.** Ninety percent of the people surveyed are familiar with *E.coli* O157:H7 and *Salmonella*. But Levy pointed out that only 20 percent areaware of *Campylobacter* and *Listeria*. This is significant because newdata from FoodNet shows Campylobacter is the leading cause of foodborne disease. Listeria,while not a common cause of illness, can cause serious complications and death forhigh-risk individuals including pregnant women and infants, the elderly and people withweakened immune systems.

    **The survey also sheds light on consumers’ food handlingpractices.** The last survey showed a significant percentage of people ateundercooked foods. Dr. Levy reports that the current survey shows that "many peoplestill eat raw eggs and undercooked burgers, but the percentages are declining. This showsthat increasing knowledge is driving significant change in behavior," Levy said.

    The survey also shows that consumers: - Are still not washing cutting boards
- Don’t wash hands frequently enough during food preparation
- Leave food out at room temperature too long.

    According to Levy, "These are all areas where we need to do alot more education."

    Do consumers recognize the role they have to play? According toLevy, they recognize a little bit, but for the most part, they feel that food safetyproblems are in other people’s hands— manufacturers, restaurants. "We aseducators face an obstacle in convincing people that there is a problem they can dosomething about. This remains a significant problem for effective consumereducation," he said.

    Information from the survey should be released later this summer.Check for updates at www.foodsafety.gov
Tracking Disease
FoodNet, the sentinel site surveillance system operating at seven sites, now coverssome 20.3 million people in the U.S. That number is expected to grow as an eighth site isadded this year.

    FoodNet is a collaborative project of the Centers for DiseaseControl and Prevention (CDC), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Food andDrug Administration (FDA).

    CDC’s FoodNet Coordinator, Drew Voetsch, reported on thesurveillance system at the USDA/FDA teleconference in May. 

    FoodNet was set up to get better estimates of the number of cases offoodborne disease in the U.S., to determine the cause and respond to new and emergingfoodborne diseases. 

    FoodNet has been operational for 2 years and is quickly increasingits knowledge base regarding foodborne disease. Among the general findings, surveillancedata show: - A strong seasonality to foodborne illness. Most cases of illness peak during the summer    months.
- Campylobacter  is "far and away the number one pathogen causing illness in    each and every month," Voetsch said.
- There are strong variations in the rates of foodborne diseases from site to site in    different states. 

    Sites are currently operating in California, Connecticut, Georgia,New York, Maryland, Minnesota, and Oregon. For more information, check the CDC website at:http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/foodnet/foodnet.htm
news briefsVice President Gore Launches new System for Tracking Illness
This past May, Vice President Gore announced a new national computer network that willbe five times faster at identifying foodborne illness.

    The network, called PulseNet, will coordinate DNA fingerprinting ofpathogens throughout 27 states. This will allow public health officials to quicklyidentify multi-state outbreaks and track sources of food contamination. 

    For instance, in as little as 48 hours, PulseNet can identify *E.coli* O157:H7 strains isolated from foods and patients from the DNA patterns. Bycontrast, in 1993, it took 3 weeks to track an *E. coli* O157:H7 outbreak tocontaminated hamburger.

    The network is coordinated through the Centers for Disease Controland Prevention (CDC). It is expected that all states will be participating by 1999.

    For more information, go to: www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dbmd/pulsenet/pulsenet.htm
Salmonella Enteritidis: Risk Assessment
A new report released by the Food Safety and Inspection Service indicates that reducinghuman illness from *Salmonella* Enteritidis (SE) may require a variety ofinterventions as opposed to a single "magic bullet" approach.

    The report is based on a new risk assessment computer model programdeveloped by a multi-disciplinary team with members from government and academia. 

    "This is our first quantitative farm-to-table microbial riskassessment and we expect it to serve as a prototype for future risk assessments,"according to USDA Under Secretary for Food Safety Catherine Woteki.

    "With this computer model, we now have a program with which wecan identify the interventions that provide the best returns in terms of public healthprotection," she said.

    "From this exercise, we’ve learned a very importantprinciple. That is, a broadly based policy is more likely to be effective than a policydirected solely at one area of the egg production to consumption chain," Wotekiadded.

    The risk assessment had several objectives, including assessing thehealth risks from eating shell eggs and egg products contaminated with SE, identifyingdata needs and identifying and evaluating risk reduction strategies.

    Using the available data, the risk assessment model estimates that2.3 million of the 46.8 billion shell eggs produced in the U.S. every year are infectedwith SE. Consumption of these eggs causes an estimated 661,633 illnesses.

    The report, titled *Salmonella Enteritidis Risk Assessment*,can be accessed on the web: http://www.fsis.usda.gov/OPHS/ophspubs.htm
More info on FDA Consumer Magazine
As mentioned in the last issue of The Educator, the Food and Drug Administration’s(FDA) magazine FDA Consumer carries articles periodically about food safety issues.

    **In fact, the September issue will include a special sectionabout food safety for National Food Safety Education MonthSM**.Topics will include juice and egg safety.

    The magazine **also** offers a wealth of new andin-depth information about health. In addition, it reports on FDA activities to ensurethat the products it regulates are safe to use. This covers a wide spectrum--food, humanand animal drugs, medical devices, radiation-emitting products, biologics.

    Concerning subscription information--there is a $9 annual fee andthe magazine comes out bimonthly. Subscriptions are handled through the GovernmentPrinting Office. Call 202/512-1800. Or check the website: http://www.fda.gov/opacom/morechoices/FDAconsumer.html
Welcoming New Subscribers
We now have more than 9,000 subscribers to *The Food Safety Educator*. Just lastmonth more than 250 people signed up. 

    Just as we had hoped when we started *The Educator*, you andyour colleagues across the country represent a wide range of interests.

    Among the people signing up last month were educators at majoruniversities and colleges, local and state public health offices, high schools, areaoffices on aging, major food producers, hospitals and even educators from Sweden, Uruguay,Agentina, the U.K. and Canada. Welcome to all of you. 

The Food Safety Educator is produced by the Food SafetyEducation and Communications Staff of the Food Safety and Inspection Service, USDA.

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) prohibitsdiscrimination in all its programs and activities on the basis of race, color, nationalorigin, gender, religion, age, disability, political beliefs, sexual orientation, andmarital or family status. (Not all prohibited bases apply to all programs.) Persons withdisabilities who require alternative means for communication of program information(Braille, large print, audiotape, etc.) should contact USDA’s TARGET Center at (202)720-2600 (voice and TDD).

To file a complaint of discrimination, write USDA, Director,Office of Civil Rights, Room 326-W Whitten, Building, 14th and Independence Avenue, SW,Washington DC 20250-9410 or call (202) 720-5964 (voice or TDD). USDA is an equalemployment opportunity provider and employer.

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**For Further Information Contact:**FSIS Food Safety Education StaffDianne Durant, EditorPhone: (202) 720-7943Fax: (202) 720-9063

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