TAINTED FOOD? HELLO SCHOOL LUNCHES!

Published on Wednesday, September 23, 2009 by USA Today
GAO Audit: Schools Slow to Get Alerts About Tainted Food

by Peter Eisler and Blake Morrison

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."
(Full Text: http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-09-22-school-lunches_N.htm?csp=34)