There have been quite a few blogs and OpEd pieces on the FDA’s policy of not releasing the names of retail outlets involved in food recalls since the huge cheese recall that began on February 10, 2017, claiming “confidential, corporate information.”

I led the change at FSIS/USDA that let loose of their claim that the sales to retail stores was “proprietary information” and now, when there is a recall of meat or poultry products, the outlets and their locations have been included since 2008.

Some of the discussions following the posts have questioned the value of naming stores instead of just naming production facilities.

When I was the chief medical officer of Nebraska, there was a recall of ground beef sold only in Nebraska. I could not get the names of the retail stores, nor the geographic area it was sent to. I could not alert the local public health offices and officials who could have let their residents know their health might be affected by saying which communities and which stores had sold the product before the recall was announced.

Sure, it might have been mentioned on the back page of the one state-wide newspaper, but who reads newspapers anymore? And much of the population of Nebraska does not have English as their main language.

Now when there is an FSIS directed recall, the local radio and TV stations can immediately let their listeners know that they should discard or return the product they bought yesterday at their local market; and if they have already consumed it, what the timeline for illness and the symptoms are, resulting in an earlier trip to seek treatment.

The local market won’t lose customers, and the small town hopefully won’t lose citizens as a result of contaminated food being present in their refrigerators.

Come on, FDA, which is more important to you as a federal government agency that is tasked with keeping most of our food safe — the life of a child or the bottom line on a company’s financial report?

So what is the "clause in the federal code” that FDA is hiding behind, and why can FSIS identify stores but not FDA?

I have been asked that question by many reporters as they researched their piece on this subject and I have no clue.

It was not an easy fight to create the FSIS change in policy, but no one ever raised a ”clause in the federal code” as an excuse to maintain status quo and not improve our role in protecting the public’s health.

But we won the fight in three relatively short years for a change of that magnitude. FDA does not have to blaze a new trail; USDA has already done that for them.

The cheese recall was for Listeria, a bug that causes miscarriages and kills the unborn child. How can an agency, located within the Department of Health and Human Services, not fight for the right of a fetus to live a healthy life while corporations claim confidentiality?

It is not rocket science.

I just don’t get it.

Public health vs. confidential corporate information

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