Public health crises such as salmonella poisoning outbreaks need prompt management by stakeholders involved, for basically three reasons: to stem the spread of the outbreak, to facilitate product recall, and to avoid general public health panic. To meet the three imperative objectives, three major groups of stakeholders should act quickly, judiciously, and professionally.

The government agencies involved as well as local government officials should do their utmost best to control the outbreak and implement the imperative product recalls. The media should help as well to temper public reaction for the crisis not to result in collective panic, as well as publicize the process of product recalls. The recent salmonella poisoning outbreaks in jalapeno peppers and peanut butter, all occurring within the last few months, are proof of how these players and stakeholders of public safety handled their mandated capacities.

There has been a clamor for the US food industry to evaluate government regulation and seek for tighter governmental measures on the sector.

It seems that there is an information-sharing gap between food companies and local FDA offices. It was a tad too late when local FDA found out that the Peanut Corporation of America had 12 salmonella contamination reports since 2007. In the US government’s bid to create and establish safety nets for the food industry, basic food safety information may possibly be withheld by food companies, especially those who may carry negative safety results.

Regulators in Georgia came up with a solution, albeit too late. They moved to change state law to now require food companies to disclose the results of their food safety tests (Moss, 2009).

The food industry seeks for stricter government regulations and more persistent implementation of such, after several companies suffered from the product scare in both the cases of peanut butter contamination and the tomato/pepper salmonella findings. Such public concerns affect the reputation and image not only of the guilty companies but of the entire group of companies that offer similar products.

The salmonella poisoning outbreaks are examples of public health crisis cases that could have been avoided had the pertinent government agencies acted posthaste on any or all of the earliest warning signs.

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Via The PigSite