Healthcare Union Raises Concerns Over Safety of Food to be Served to Olympic Athletes at Vancouver Olympics

WASHINGTON, Feb. 11 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --The Service Employees International Union, the nation's largest healthcare union, is raising questions about the safety of food being provided to athletes at the Vancouver Winter Olympics by Sodexo, a global food service contractor based in France who served contaminated meat at a camp in Virginia sickening more than two dozen boy scouts.

The union is calling on Sodexo to provide greater transparency about the origin of the food they will be serving athletes, including: disclosing the primary supplier of the food that they will serve to athletes and whether those companies have had problems with contaminated food; whether the food will come from a "cook and chill" facility or will be cooked and served on-site; and to make the steps they are taking to ensure food safety easily available to the public.

Each of these issues present areas of concern for athletes. For example, "cook and chill" means the food is cooked elsewhere and shipped frozen to kitchens to be reheated.  Because of this method, health code violations at the "cook and chill" facility can mean problems with the end product. Sodexo recently chose to stop using its "cook-chill" facility in Tennessee, which provided meals for U.S. Marines. In March 2007, the cook-chill facility came under scrutiny by the Tennessee Dept. of Agriculture for a rodent problem at the facility. According to the inspection report, there were "mouse droppings in corners," "droppings all around edge of warehouse," and dead mice in multiple locations. The USDA found a total of 79 records of food safety noncompliance at the facility between December 2005 and September 2009.

Companies like Sodexo -- which purchase food in bulk from wholesale suppliers -- rely in part on the broken U.S. inspection system to safeguard the food they serve to their clients. But there are serious concerns about whether that system is up to the task. According to experts who study food safety, such as the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), "The food safety system in America is broken. Foods regulated by the Food and Drug Administration have caused serious national outbreaks sickening thousands."  In fact, CSPI reports four separate pieces of food safety legislation in the current Congress intended to address problems in the nation's food supply.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports an estimated 76 million cases of foodborne disease occur each year in the United States, including an estimated 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths each year. Contamination comes from three primary sources -- production, processing, shipping and handling. While Sodexo touts its quality assurance program, Sodexo has a record of using food from suppliers -- such as Cargill Meat Solutions Corporation, a meat processor and distributor that owns major beef-distributor Beef Packers, Inc. -- who have been the subject of major national food recalls including two recalls in 2009 for more than 826,000 pounds of beef feared contaminated with salmonella Newport and the 2007 recall of one million pounds of ground beef thought to be  contaminated with a toxic form of E. coli bacteria that seriously sickened dozens of people, including a 10 year girl who became so ill she may have needed a kidney transplant.

Even in cases where the food supply itself is safe, there still can be problems with how contractors handle and prepare the food. Sodexo also has a troubling record when it comes to handling and storing food that covers a wide range of facilities, including elementary schools, universities, military bases, and even Boy Scout camps.  The result of  these two issues, purchasing food from suppliers with a record of selling tainted food, coupled with their record of handling food, has already caused many to become ill. For example:

• In July 2009, Sodexo served meat contaminated with E. Coli to Boy Scouts in Goshen, Virginia, sickening at least 25 people who attended camp there. According to the Washington Post, one Scout was hospitalized with hemolytic uremic syndrome, a complication that can occur when the E. coli toxin enters the bloodstream which can lead to kidney failure.
• In February 2009, an article in Suffolk University's student newspaper reported that Sodexo had failed health inspections but had not notified students. Violations included failure to store chicken and tuna salad at the appropriate temperatures.  A few weeks later, a Suffolk student found a bug in his sandwich. Students organized a forum called "Sodexo Needs to Go" to discuss the incidents with Student Government. Sodexo held several meetings and weekly "office hours" with students after the incidents to help rebuild trust.
• On June 29, 2007, Sodexo agreed to a voluntary USDA recall of 2,768 pounds of "ready-to-eat" chicken products contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes that were produced by Sodexo at a cook-chill facility it leases in Tennessee. The potentially tainted products were produced on April 25, 2007, just three weeks after Sodexo had written the Tennessee Dept. of Agriculture to assure regulators that its previous problem concerning rodents had been resolved. Some of the tainted chicken was sent to two Marine bases on the West Coast: Camp Pendleton and the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego. An additional seven cases of chicken products were shipped to the Northwest Correctional Complex, a state prison located in Tiptonville, Tennessee.
• In Berks County, Pennsylvania, several students at the Birdsboro Elementary Center became sick after the Sodexo-run cafeteria served them milk they said had an unusual taste. According to the district superintendent, the children said they had either a sore throat or stomach ache, due to a sanitizer used to clean milk containers having leaked into the milk itself. "Some kids just didn't feel well," said School Board President Kevin F. McCullough of the December 2008 incident. "The milk did not taste right to the kids." At John McDonogh Senior High School in New Orleans -- another Sodexo school cafeteria -- students became ill after drinking tainted orange juice that was later found to have mold on the container. New Orleans College Prep was also served spoiled milk. Sodexo claimed it was not expired, and had the vendor pick it up and bring fresh milk.

SOURCE Service Employees International Union