USDA tightens reporting rules for tainted eggs

After learning its inspectors unknowingly approved the sale of eggs from an Ohio farm that tested positive for salmonella, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is tightening its reporting rules for egg producers. "The USDA's inspector general uncovered the problem during an investigation started after the massive recall last summer of eggs linked to farms in Iowa owned by or associated with Jack DeCoster," Phillip Brasher of the Des Moines Register reports. "USDA has started requiring farms to notify its inspectors anytime salmonella contamination is found either in eggs or on the farm."

Eggs from the unnamed Ohio farm were recalled on Nov. 5, 2010. USDA "grades eggs for quality, while the Food and Drug Administration regulates the safety of egg production," Brasher writes. "The inspector general said neither the farm nor the FDA had notified USDA's egg inspectors of the salmonella finding." Michael Jarvis, a spokseman for USDA's Agriculture Marketing Service, told Brasher, "We are toughening the requirements, and I think we've opened the lines of communication much better than they were." (Read more)