The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric aired yet another report last night detailing the risks associated with feeding antibiotics to farm animals. The report is a follow-up to a series aired in February and reported on here in the LivableFutureBlog.  In last night’s report, Couric covers Wedneday’s Congressional hearing held to determine whether or [...]

Leadership at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) made it abundantly clear last week that the low-dose usage of antibiotics in food animals, simply to promote growth or improve feed efficiency, needlessly contributes to the emergence of antibiotic resistant bacteria and poses a serious threat to public health. Despite the fact that the FDA [...]

During my TV-news days, I supported the old axiom; it must be a balanced report if we’re getting just as much negative feedback as we are positive responses. I found the same rule of thumb to hold true on Capitol Hill. Good legislation usually means each side had to make serious concessions, inevitably leaving a [...]

Baltimore’s former health commissioner, Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, is making news as the new deputy director of the FDA, serving under the new commissioner, Dr. Margaret Hamburg. Hamburg and Sharfstein have pledged to reform the food safety system and encourage scientific exchange and better communication to the public.
In the New England Journal of Medicine, [...]

On Tuesday Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack said he would like to see a single food safety agency as opposed to the current system where food safety for the millions of Americans is overseen by two separate agencies, the USDA and the FDA.  “We are the only industrial nation to have two systems,” said Secretary Vilsack, [...]