News of the Day: GAO audit: Schools slow to get alerts about tainted food

Today's front page story in the USA Today about a recent GAO audit is recommended reading. The audit is in response to an investigation request by U.S. Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL), and U.S. Reps. George Miller (D-CA), Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), and Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY).

The USA Today says:

Federal agencies that supply food for 31 million schoolchildren fail to ensure that tainted products are pulled quickly from cafeterias, a federal audit obtained by USA TODAY finds.

The delays raise the risk of children being sickened by contaminated food, according to the audit by Congress' Government Accountability Office.

In recent recalls, including one this year in which salmonella-infected peanut butter sickened almost 700 people, the government failed to disseminate "timely and complete notification about suspect food products provided to schools through the federal commodities program," the audit says.

Such alerts sometimes took more than a week to reach schools, "during which time (schools) unknowingly served affected products."

Chairman Miller said, “Ensuring that all children have access to healthy and nutritious meals during the school day is vital to our efforts to help all children learn and succeed. Every possible effort must be made to make sure that the foods served to our schoolchildren are safe to eat. As we work toward reauthorizing the school meal programs, it is clear that further actions must be taken to strengthen the communications, planning and procedures needed to prevent recalled or contaminated foods from entering our cafeterias.”

We recommend you read the entire USA Today article, Democratic lawmakers' statements, and the GAO report.