Transcript - FSIS Employee Biosecurity Awareness Meeting

These goals are not given in any particular order of prioritization. They are all top priority.

Let me start off with a goal, though, of biosecurity and briefly give a few examples of the progress made by FSIS in each of these areas.

The first goal is to protect the food supply from a bioterrorist attack. As Jesse will soon tell you, we have been quite active in achieving this goal. Much has been done and there is still a long ways to go. That is why we have taken a multifaceted approach to biosecurity, which includes both short- and long-term strategies that focus on coordination, prevention, preparedness, as well as rapid response.

Soon after President Bush created the Office Of Homeland Security, USDA organized an internal homeland security council to work in partnership with the new Homeland Security Office. Also, the Food Threat Preparedness Network or PrepNet was formed to ensure effective coordination of food security efforts among different Federal departments. Under Secretary Murano formed the Food Biosecurity Action Team, or F-BAT, to coordinate and facilitate all activities pertaining to biosecurity, countering terrorism, and emergency preparedness within FSIS. Jesse will provide you with more details on F-BAT activities.

The second goal is to improve the management of agency programs. Next week Dr. Garry McKee will start as FSIS’ new Administrator. As you might have heard, Dr. McKee comes to us from the Wyoming Department of Health and he brings more than 30 years of public health experience as well as a solid track record in managing public health programs and personnel.

At this time, on the behalf of the Department, I want to extend my sincere appreciation to Bill Hudnall, who stepped in as acting Administrator during the past four months, Bill performed an exceptional job of steering the ship in the right course while we looked for a permanent FSIS administrator. Would you please join me in a round of applause for Bill. Bill, thank you.

[applause]

Next week you will be returning to APHIS. You have to step all the way across the hallway, right? Okay.

In addition to Dr. McKee, the current restructuring of the Agency is underway and progressing very well. We certainly appreciate your cooperation, your support, your suggestions in making these changes. Now, Bill will soon give you some more insight about this, including the newly created Food Security Office. Right? Okay. Good.

The third goal is to enhance communication with our sister Agencies. Iimproving communication is paramount for biosecurity. We are working closely with other agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration, EPA, CDC, the Department Of Defense, and USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, individually and through the Food Preparedness Network or PrepNet, which I mentioned earlier.

The fourth goal is to engage in proactive education programs. For both food safety and biosecurity, we're implementing a very aggressive education and risk communication campaign to expand awareness of our efforts and to maintain the high level of confidence that consumers have in our food safety system.

For example, we are cosponsoring with the Department Of Health And Human Services and the Partnership Of -- For Food Safety Education, a food safety education conference on September 18-20 in Orlando, Florida. Among the topics we will be discussing at this conference will be promoting biosecurity awareness, to both consumers and food preparers.

The fifth goal is to base food safety policies on science. And we have made, I think, considerable progress in this area. Our science-driven policies have led to the need for more front-line personnel with scientific and technical expertise that will help in prevention of intentional contamination at the food processing plant. An example is our District Veterinary Medical Specialists who serve as points of contact for biosecurity issues in their respective Districts.

These underlying goals for FSIS will help us achieve our public health mission and improve our biosecurity measures. However, the goals are not effective if they are just written down on paper. They must be placed into action in our everyday lives, in processing plants, and everything that we do as members of the FSIS team. It takes each of us to realize that what we do each day does make a difference in the lives of millions of others. We have an awesome responsibility. There is always more that we can do to make things better.

I believe that FSIS employees already realize the difference they are making for the country and the world. For instance, the number of retirements fell below what was projected last year. After September 11^th some of you who were eligible for retire chose not to out of a newfound sense of purpose, out of devotion to your country, to your friends and loved ones, and to the well-being of millions of Americans. You realized what was at stake and valued the importance of the work that you do every day.

Although many times it goes unsaid and unnoticed by millions of consumers around the Nation, I want you to realize the vital job you are doing to ensure a safe food supply. It is extremely important, the work that you do, and it is something that I really appreciate your dedication. On behalf of the Department, I want to thank you for your efforts to protect the Nation's food supply from bioterrorism.

Yes, the terrorists who plotted the attacks of September 11^th wanted to change the United States. They thought that they were bigger than something -- you know, than quite frankly common sense and humanity.

There was a change. They brought about a unity not seen since World War II. When you smile, share a joke with your neighbor, go to work, and take pride in what you do, you are defying those who want to undermine this wonderful Nation. We are a beacon for freedom around the world and that cannot be diminished or taken away. No matter what job you perform at FSIS, remember the critical role that you carry out for ensuring the safety of the Nation's food supply. Be vigilant and observant for detecting any suspicious activity that might affect the public's health. Many of you are the Nation's first line of defense against bioterrorist activity at the plant level.

And everyone must realize we all have important roles to play in assuring food safety from the farm-to-table continuum. If you have friends or family who are farmers, chefs or restaurant owners, inform them of additional steps they can take to protect consumers. Generate a healthy dialogue from which both of you can learn something. FSIS has developed numerous beneficial guides for industry and consumers. The key here is what we want -- is to build awareness without causing fear and do everything we can to prevent a bioterrorist attack or outbreaks of illness.

I know this can certainly be a challenging issue to address when there are so many unknowns in this unconventional war. I strongly encourage your questions and comments during our question and answer session today.

You can achieve success through open dialogue and discussion. This builds the foundation for freedom we enjoy so much.

Thank you for your attention today. And I appreciate the good job you are doing for FSIS and this Nation.

Thank you very much.

[applause]

>> MR. MAJKOWSKI: Thank you, Dr. Pierson, especially for those inspiring messages and those words. Dr. Pierson had some other commitments that he had to fulfill today and so he's going to be leaving the conference.

William Hudnall, acting Administrator, has been acting Administrator since April of this year. For those of you who know him know that he has been and our Agency for some time. He has served in a variety of positions in the agency: Associate Administrator, Assistant Deputy Administrator for Office of Policy and Program Development, Deputy Administrator for Administrative Management. He knows the Agency well.

In February of 2000, he was serving as the Deputy Administrator, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service with USDA. In this capacity, he provided direction in the areas of human resources, finance, procurement and contracting for APHIS. In April, he was asked to be our acting Administrator. With that let me introduce Bill Hudnall.

[applause]

>>MR. HUDNALL: Thank you, Jesse. Good afternoon everyone. Most of you have never seen me in quite this role. I don't give many speeches, so I’m going to try this one.

Biosecurity is an issue of enormous concern to all of us and to millions of people who depend on the safe, wholesome food every day. It is very possibly, as Dr. Pierson said, our next great challenge. I, for one, am confident that FSIS will meet this challenge. Let me tell you why.

FSIS has a long proud history in food safety. We were created at the beginning of the last century to facilitate agricultural trade with Europe. Public and Congressional reaction to a book called The Jungle expanded the mandate and gave us responsibility for seeing to it that some truly horrific industry practices were corrected. Animal diseases and their effect on the safety and wholesomeness of meat and poultry became of a concern, and suddenly our regulations were replete with requirements as to which animal diseases required whole or partial carcass contamination.

Following World War I, exponential growth occurred in what is now called further processing. Convenience foods were born and FSIS was given the responsibility of seeing to it they were safe and that they were truthfully labeled. Our regulations and our organizational structure suddenly began to deal with such things as standards of identity and composition, truthful labeling, complete ingredient statements. In addition to food safety and wholesomeness, our inspectors were suddenly dealing with net weights, labels, species substitution, protein content and the like. In short, processing was born, and the processing inspector was born.

FSIS met each of these challenges. It is now hard even to imagine conditions described in The Jungle. Animal diseases of human health concern due to consumption of meat and poultry, while not gone, are a rarity. Those that do occur, are detected before or during slaughter. Consumers can and do trust the labels on processed foods. As I said, FSIS has a long, proud history.

Most recently, public and Congressional attention focused on foodborne pathogens and we responded to this challenge. Our regulations and organizational structure began to reflect this focus. This challenge is not over, but steady progress is being made.

What I want you to take from what I have just said, is a feeling of accomplishment and of pride. These accomplishments are what tell me that FSIS will meet the food security challenge.

I said at the beginning of these remarks that biosecurity, food security is probably a better phrase for us, is perhaps our next great challenge. The notion that someone or some group intentionally would turn our food into a weapon and use it against us is new. This is not something for which our experience has prepared us. We do, however, know how to get ready.

We will once again adjust our organization; we will adjust our procedures; we will adjust our regulations. We have just issued security guidelines for food processors; we just recently announced organizational changes. In short we will do what our history has shown to be effective: regulatory, procedural and organizational change. The rest of my remarks will deal with the organizational changes made to position the agency to better handle threats to food security.

Effective August 11 this year, FSIS had an Office Of Food Security. The Office's mission is to plan and coordinate an FSIS response to terrorists or suspected terrorist threats or deliberate acts affecting the safety of meat, poultry, and egg products. This Office will first plan those steps necessary to deter or prevent deliberate acts. Second, they will plan for containment, should prevention fail. Finally, they will plan for the removal and proper disposal of products affected by biological, chemical or radiological agents or devices. This Office will coordinate what FSIS is doing with USDA Homeland Security Office.

The office is comprised of four existing functions or subgroups that I’ll briefly describe. The first group is the Emergency Planning Branch, which was formerly called the Emergency Planning Staff when it was under the Office Of Management. The Emergency Planning Branch is the entity designated to represent USDA in response to a radiological emergency under the Federal Radiological Emergency Response Plan.

The second group is the Emergency Response Team which was formerly under the Emergency Response Branch in OPHS. The Emergency Response Team will be the nucleus. They will deal with attacks on the food supply, again whether biological, chemical or radiological. The team will address the science and the logistics of protecting the public health as well as Agency actions on the affected products.

The third group is part of the Federal/State Relations Office, which was formerly within OPPDE. This group recognizes that we are not alone, that we have partners in other Federal agencies and in the States with whom we must plan, coordinate, and communicate. This is necessary if we are to have the strongest food security effort possible. We must take advantage of all available resources.

Finally, Food Security will incorporate the FSIS Food Biosecurity Action Team into its functions. As mentioned by Dr. Pierson, this will include F-BAT, PrepNet, and one that I did not mention, COOP [continuity of operations planning].

Hopefully this brief description of the Office Of Food Security's role and mission within the Agency will give you a better indication of where we are headed. We look forward to your questions and comments. Your input will definitely help and improve the efficiency of our programs and increase our vigilance to protect the safest food supply in the world.

On another note, I would like to take the opportunity to tell everyone that it has been a pleasure to come back to FSIS. I have enjoyed it. It was a great opportunity. As Dr. Pierson has mentioned earlier, you have Dr. McKee starting next week, and I’m sure that you will give him your full support.

Thank you.

[applause]

>>MR. MAJKOWSKI: Thank you, Bill, for those opening remarks and I think all of us echo Dr. Pierson's remarks thanking you for coming over to FSIS and transitioning us to this new Administrator.

I would like to start out now with where are we going with food security and what's happening and what have we done. Let me first start out by talking about a little bit of history, and I think it will be helpful to understand where we have been before we take a look at where we are going.

Many countries have had biological weapon programs. In 1950 through the '60s the U.S. had a wheat stem rust and FMD [foot and mouth disease] program going on. In the early '70s, we had the USSR or the Soviet Union with FMD, African swine fever programs going on. As we know, many in that country dissolved into smaller areas and there is concern about the remnants of that program that's left over.

In the '80s and '90s we had Iraq with a [wheat stem rice?] program.

There have been some recent terrorist events. If we take a look at some of these, in 1993, we had the attack on the World Trade Center. In 1995, we had the attack on Oklahoma City, the Federal Building. In 1998, we had the U.S. Embassy bombings, two of them at one time. In addition to that, just recently you know we had the events of 2001: The World Trade Center, The Pentagon, and the plane crash in Pennsylvania that was -- that thwarted those terrorists.

The Rand Corporation has taken a look at these events of the past and looked at the terrorist activities for the past 20 years. One thread that runs through all of these is that - the use of explosives. And if you talk to the analysts that have looked at the – the threats and the terrorist activities that have gone on, they will tell you that we're looking at more bombings, that type of activity. What's changed in the most recent years is the ability to coordinate those attacks. Have two simultaneous attacks going on at the same time.

What could we expect if there is an attack on the food supply? Or what would be the purpose of an attack on the food supply?

One of those items is disruptions without deaths. We could see disruption of food supply without having any death. We could also see the destruction of brand names – a corporation or a certain brand of products could be attacked.

Probably one thing we have seen is the economic gains on futures markets. If you think back a couple months ago, we had an event in Kansas where it was reported that an animal may -- was being tested for FMD. That report alone resulted in close to $50 million dollar losses in one day on the beef markets. So there's some real serious concerns about economic gain.

Another area is the area of outbreaks, the ability to distinguish between an intentional and non-intentional outbreak. These are some of the things that we may see if there is an attack on the food supply.

There have been other attacks on the food supply going back a little bit further. 1952, insurgents in Kenya tried to poison cattle that was going to be used by British soldiers as food. In 1978, we had an event where Palestinian commandos contaminated citrus fruits with mercury. In '85, we had tea exports being threatened. And then in 1989, there were the breeders’ claims that they were releasing fruit flies in California. Recently in '89 we had the Chilean grapes that were contaminated. 1996, this one is an interesting one especially for those of us who are in labs, all the people working in the labs, Shigella was found in doughnuts at a laboratory. A disgruntled laboratory worker apparently wanted to get even with many of his cohorts in the laboratory and laced doughnuts that had he brought in with Shigella.

There of have been other attacks and Dr. Pierson mentioned the first one, 1984, the attack of salad bars, the Salmonella on salad bars. If any of you were watching Dateline on Sunday, they had a special session on that, and they were referring to that as the first bioterrorist event in this country. For those that weren't familiar with this, there was a small community that they were trying to gain some control over the City Council, I believe, and they began poisoning salad bars throughout that city and county so that people would not go to the polls.

In '94 and '95 of course we had the sarin gas attack in Japan in the subway, the release of sarin gas. We had several deaths from that. In 1995, you may remember the arrest of an individual who obtained Bubonic plague and anthrax that was obtained illegally. They didn't use it, but it was discovered that they had purchased it.

And finally in 2001 we had the events of the anthrax outbreak. And if you think of what happened with that event, we had only four or five deaths resulting from that. But the fear that it put in people regarding opening their mail, the procedures that we went -- were going through here now in looking at our mail, it had a devastating effect on us.

What have we been doing at USDA in terms of bioterrorism efforts? Have we just started since 9/11? The answer is no. We have been working on this for some time.

Back in 1998, there was a -- a novel that was written on a bioterrorist attack in New York City. The president at that time, President Clinton, had read that novel over a weekend and was concerned about whether or not we were prepared. Shortly after reading that novel, a series of Presidential Directives were issued to the -- to the agencies to look at their infrastructures and how were we going to protect these. Agriculture chaired the Agriculture and Food Safety/Weapons of Mass Destruction. People in ARS and others in the Department had been working on this since about '97-'98.

In addition to that, during that time, and those last two years of the previous Administration, USDA had a counter terrorism council that was formed to handle a bioterrorism event.

What have the federal efforts been since then? Most recently, we had a Bioterrorism Preparedness Act Of 2001 passed. Money was provided to many of the agencies. USDA received approximately $325 million. Our Agency received about - approximately $16 million. We developed some initiatives for that money; we have a plan for that money. We are working on looking at physical security, biosecurity, lab security, education and training, as well as consumer awareness.

In addition to that, we have the Department Of Homeland Security. Earlier we had this as the Office Of Homeland Security out at The White House, but we expect at some point in time that the Department will be approved when Congress is back in session.

Well, what is our Office going to do? And if you notice we have changed our title already in name. Part of that reason is that not only being responsible for food security, we are going to be looking at being prepared in emergency preparedness. We have about six areas that we're going to be working on. Emergency planning, planning when we have an intended attack on the food supply, how are we going to respond? We are also going to be looking at food security at the Federal and State level, making them more aware. We also have our bio-- our Food Biosecurity Action Team that had started much of the initial work that we have been working on. COOP, the continuation of operations. If you think about 9/11, what happened when Washington and the people were sent home that day from Washington, meat and poultry products and egg products kept flowing throughout the country. Our inspectors were on the job; they were inspecting products and our Districts were on the job.

In addition to that, we have the FERRET, or Food Emergency Rapid Response Evaluation Team. This is a group of people that at the Under Secretary's level and Administrator's level that will be handling any events that involve products or commodities that USDA purchases. As you may be aware, we purchase many commodities for the feeding program. Some of those we regulate and others we don't.

In addition to that, PrepNet or the Food Threat Preparedness Network, is the other group that will be dealing with incidents that cut across Federal agencies, such as CDC, FDA, USDA, and even DoD.

What is our plan for food security? We have a plan we put together for the next several years. And our major goal is to prevent the use of food as a weapon. We have about seven initiatives that we are working on. Let me just briefly highlight some of them.

Food security and preparedness is one major issue we are working on and I will give some more detail about this in a minute.

Employee safety. We need to be able to protect our employees. Just for example, when we had the anthrax incidents in the fall, we had plants calling in, many inspectors calling in, that they had found an envelope with white powder. In those situations, we stopped products from moving in and out of those plants, removed our people until local law enforcement and HAZMAT could determine what was in those envelopes, making sure our employees were protected as well as the products, if they were contaminated, didn't move into commerce.

Communications is another area that we are working on. The message that we give to people will undermine or give confidence in the food supply. Just as happened in Kansas with the information that came out on FMD on the animal being tested, we need to be careful how we craft our message and what we say to people, should an event occur.

Training is another area that we are working on. We need to train people. We need to have exercises. How to respond. I will be talking a little bit more in depth about that.

In addition to that, we need to be looking at the international community, products that are coming into this country.

Now in terms of food security and emergency response, we first started taking a look at the food supply from farm to table. Where are the vulnerabilities in that food supply? What could happen to the food supply as it moves from the farm to slaughter through processing and through the retail sector?

We have a group of risk assessors, public health officials and physicians that are assessing this now as we speak, looking at what agents could be used, how could they affect the public? Once we complete that work, we will then be looking at our strategies for prevention or detecting those agents. We also want to take a look at our current regs [regulations], what do we have in place now that currently protects the food supply or would mitigate any of those agents being used.

In addition to that, we want to have -- we are going to have an Emergency Response Team. In July, we issued a notice announcing that we were forming an Emergency Response Team. As you may well be aware, we handle emergencies on any given day. Let's take a look at our recall that goes on on a daily basis, outbreaks that go on. We have people in place that handle those on a day-to-day basis.

This team is being set up to gear with the biological agents or a -- an attack on the food supply. Those are quite different than our normal response. In terms of employee safety and health, we have a contract that we are working on right now taking a look at various scenarios that could appear or occur in a plant as a result of a biosecurity event and identifying what our response would be, how could we protect our people from that.

Many people asked the question, are we first responders? Well, we tend to believe we will probably be first arrivers on the scene and have to depend on the first responders to secure the area.

In addition to that, we are looking at analytical equipment. Is there equipment that we should be purchasing to test environmentally areas in the plants? Recently when we had the anthrax hoaxes, we had after a number of those, some of the HAZMAT groups were not going to be testing the products that were coming in and the question arose, should we have the capability of doing that if local officials were not going to do that?

In terms of COOP, we need to secure alternative sites. If you think back to Y2K, when we were changing over to a new century, we were wondering whether the lights would stay on, whether computers would work, whether we could get money out of the ATM machines. Our Agency was very forthright in planning on how we were going to deal with that, we put together plans in case offices were shut down, how we were going to deal with that. Those plans came into play on 9/11 and we were very fortunate to have them. We were one of the few agencies in the Department that was prepared. We need to maintain that capability and we need to update these plans continually.

In addition to that, we are working on our secure communications and our cyber security also. Part of the money we receive as a result of the Bioterrorism Act will be used for this.

Communications is an area that is extremely important. Educational awareness materials. We need to get materials out to our producers as well as to consumers. We have a group that's working on that, that is part of the Food Biosecurity Action Team that is working on this.

We have also been participating in a number of national and local conferences. We've been working with the Food Security Alliance. This was pulled together by the industry to take a look at how they could better secure their facilities.

In addition to that we need to establish backup communications capabilities. What happens if the system here at USDA goes down, how would consumers get onto our site and get information? Do we have some alternative ways of providing that information?

Laboratories are another area of concern. Many of you have been in the Agency may have heard of the assessment that the Office Of Inspector General did. I was surprised to read when I saw that report, we have over 360-some-odd labs in USDA. We have four of those labs. The agents that are in those labs are a concern. Security of the labs are of concern. Again, back in the fall when we had the anthrax hoaxes going on in the plants, we had an incident that occurred at one of the labs. The lab was shut down. We couldn't get results out, we couldn't complete analyzing the samples that were in there. So we are working now on improving that security. In addition to that, we are looking at purchase equipment so that we can screen for bt agents also.

In terms of training education, this is probably the biggest challenge for us. What are we going to be training our people for in the field? How are we going to be training them and what types of materials are we going to be using? Just recently we put out our food security guidelines. Many have asked, why such a long delay since the events of 9/11? Well, many of the materials that we were developing, communication materials, we were being held back by the Department and the Department was wanting to put out information. There was a major concern shortly after 9/11 about the types of information that we were going to be putting out and what our message should be. It took some time to clarify that.

In addition to that, we want to develop some remote classroom learning for people in the field. Some biosecurity/ food security awareness, making them aware of food security.

One of the biggest areas we will be working on shortly is table-top exercises. We have an exercise planned in September for our District Managers; that's going to be happening in late September. In addition to that, there will be a major exercise that the Department will have at the under secretary level. Once with that table-top exercise is complete, we'll then complete one here at FSIS at headquarters and what we hope to test out there is how we would respond to [an] emergency, what our emergency response is. These table-top exercises are extremely useful in pointing out weaknesses in our response, or areas where we don't have policy and where we need to clarify issues.

In terms of the international area, we are moving to hire an additional 20 import inspectors. We have five that should be coming on board very shortly. The other 15 should be hired in the next month -- next several months. What we are hoping to do is now is to identify what ports we should be placing them at. We have a small group that's looking at that, how they should be deployed.

Question that many people have asked, well, are they going to be doing the same thing that they normally have done as Import Inspectors? No, they are not. We are going to be focusing more on food security and expanding their activities to protect the food that's coming into the country. In addition to that, remember I mentioned that we are doing a vulnerability assessment. We are also doing an assessment of imports. We are taking a look at where the imports are vulnerable, what we can do to protect them.

In summary, let me just sum up by saying a couple of key things. One is that I think the message that I would like people to walk away with is that FSIS is prepared to respond to a threat. We have done that for many years. We are building our capability to respond to multiple attacks or multiple events at any given time. It will take resources and staff to do that.

Our field staff in and outside of the plants do serve as an early alert. Shortly after 9/11 we issued a letter out to the field, asking them to report any suspicious activities. We got many, many reports from that. People have asked what types of information did you receive, what types of reports or problems were reported? We had threats against individuals here in Washington, high-level officials, to threats against the food supply. These reports were handed over to OIG who in turn handed them over to the FBI. The question that everyone asks is, what happened to them? We really don't know. Seems they fell into a black hole but we know they were being investigated.

As we approach September 11^th, a lot of concern about what can occur that week, if anything will occur. One message that I would like to leave with people today is that we need to be vigilant. We need to be aware what's going on around our surroundings, especially the in the plants, in distribution, outside of the plants. If you see or hear of any suspicious activity, we want you to report them. And call this number at the Technical Service Center, which is available 24 hours and seven days a week. It is 1-800-233-3935.

So with that, what I would like to do now is begin to transition into our question and answer period. And with that, I’m going to ask our panel members to come up to the panel.

While we are getting set up for questions and answers, let me inform those who are participating outside of Washington, DC area, that if you want to call in a question, please call 1-800-832-7259. Let me repeat that number for those who are listening or watching us - 1-800-832-7259. For those in this area in the 202 area, you can call a local number, that is 202-720-8436. Again let me repeat it, 202-720-8436. We would ask those that are calling in to please identify themselves and give us a little bit of where you are working within the Agency. Are you working in the plant, in a District Office, or where you are working within the headquarters office.

While we are waiting for that, there is -- there is -- over time, we have always had questions continually come up. And I would like to ask Bill if he could respond to because we get questions from the field. Bill, when someone sees something going on suspicious, how would you like them to report that or respond in the field?

>>MR. HUDNALL: Okay. We would like folks to call the Technical Service Center, and again that number is 1-800-233-3935, for any suspicious activity.

>>MR. MAJKOWSKI: For those that are listening and those in the audience, when those reports go into the Technical Service Center, they will take a look at them and then send them into my office, and we will get them over depending on what it is to the appropriate people. Sometimes it may need to go to the OIG office, could need to go to Field Operations, back to them, it could perhaps need to go to our new group, the PEER group, and so forth.

One of the other questions that we continually are asked is about outbreaks, and how do we know if they are intentional and non-intentional. Karen, could you comment on that?

>>DR. KAREN HULEBAK, Panelist: Sure, Jesse. When it looks to epidemiologists and microbiologists and others in the Office Of Public Health and Science who take first look at data coming in on illnesses, we always look to see whether… in many cases in the beginning of an incident, we don't know whether a series of illnesses are associated with FSIS-regulated products at all, in many cases. So our initial steps are always to gather more information and to look for a connection among the illnesses and look to see if there is a connection with a single food, food source, look to see whether that food source might be meat, poultry or egg products. And certainly since September 11^th we have been on heightened alert for anything about a series of illnesses developing that looks like it might be unusual in any way, either because we suspect that the agent may be an unusual agent, that the pattern of diseases is developing in a way that's different than we are used to seeing. Remember that the folks I’m talking about are used to investigating illness outbreaks. They are used to looking at things that are by their very nature unusual, so they are looking for something unusual in the unusual. And that's their mode of action. I think they are experts at it, physicians and microbiologists, and they are focused at looking for such patterns.

>>MR. MAJKOWSKI: Thank you, Karen. We have a caller calling in from Lexington, Kentucky, so why don't we go to the phones?

>> CALLER: Good afternoon. This is Charles [?], I’m a compliance officer in Lexington, Kentucky. Hi, Jesse, how are you? I was wondering how this new group is going to interface with the new PEER group that's in Compliance?

>>MR. MAJKOWSKI: Could you just repeat that a little bit slower? I don't think we quite heard

>> CALLER (Charles): There's been a new group that's formed in Compliance, I think its acronym is PEER, and I was wondering how the new food security group will work and interface with the new group in Compliance?

>>MR. BILL SMITH, Panelist: This is Bill Smith. One of the reasons we have reallocated our resources or reorganized was so that we would have a dedicated work force which is in the enforcement arena, which has specialty in investigation, traceback, taking interviews, working with sister agencies, other law enforcement agencies, and the folks in Compliance that are going to be going with the PEER group, that will be their responsibility.

>> MR. MAJKOWSKI: And part of our role in Food Security is going to interface with Field Operations, with PEER and also with OPHS and assist them in coordinating any response or the information we have on any events also.

We have another caller calling in from Omaha, Nebraska. Go ahead, Omaha.

Oh, we lost Omaha.

Let me ask, we had some other questions we have received over the course of the events, going out and talking to people. And let me pose a couple of these to the panel and see who might respond to this.

One of the questions that continually comes up when we go out and talk to various groups is, will food safety functions be included in the Department Of Homeland Security? The new Homeland Security is being formed and I probably should take that question myself.

The answer that we have been telling people is we really don't know, because right now, the bill is being debated in Congress. Up to this point, food safety, our Agency, wasn't included. As you probably are aware, all of APHIS was included initially and now portions of it are, and I'm not sure, Bill, if you have any more information on that or not.

>>MR. HUDNALL: (Reply unclear)

>> MR. MAJKOWSKI: We also have mikes available for any of those in the audience who want to ask any questions. Go ahead, Bonnie. Introduce yourself.

>>DR. BONNIE BUNTAIN (from audience): Hi. I’m Bonnie Buntain, the Chief Veterinary Public Health Officer for the Agency and I really appreciate, and I know the vets in the field are very anxious to get, this information.

We have been dealing a lot with partnering with APHIS and looking at ways we can coordinate and improve our coordination in the field response for surveillance as well as the emergency response. One of the things that might happen of course is the issue of foreign animal disease, such as foot and mouth disease as you mentioned. However, it may or may not be caused by a bioterrorist or a terrorist attack. I'm curious, I know some of us in Field Operations are curious, will your new group, how will it handle emergency events that are non-security events? Will the coordination of a -- how we interact with APHIS on a foot and mouth disease that's not a security threat, be part of your planning and your operations? What's your take on that?

>>MR. MAJKOWSKI: Well, from our -- our office's perspective at least is that an event such as that should be handled as it normally would be if 9/11 had not occurred. I think what we would be looking at, and in working with you or whoever else in the field, is making sure that it wasn't an intentional act and pursuing it that way. What we are hoping to do with any of these normal-type emergencies that occur from a day-to-day basis is let the program areas take the lead responsibility and sit in the background and be vigilant at least, to be thinking about and looking at could this be an intentional act or not.

>>DR. BUNTAIN: Thank you.

>> MR. MAJKOWSKI: Sure. We have a caller from Greeley. Go ahead, Greeley.

>> CALLER (Dr. Jones): Yes. This is Ron Jones, District Manager out at Boulder. I was curious how the biosecurity teams and COOP plans will be involved with State emergency boards that the CS's are involved with? Any guidance on that?

>> MR. MAJKOWSKI: The question, let me just repeat it. Were about State emergency boards and the COOP plan and our emergency response. Is that sort of the question, Ron?

>> CALLER (Dr. Jones): Yes.

>> MR. MAJKOWSKI: For those that may not be aware, there is an emergency planning Board and these emergency boards deal with catastrophes at any given time. It's probably a group of people that we have not made contacts with or been involved with. I know some of the District Managers when we were in Omaha training district people to go out and do biosecurity presentations were on these boards or had contacts with them.

As we form our group and the group that's going to be dealing with Federal-State relations, I think that is an area where we need to do some work and make some contacts. One of the things that we did do when we were in Omaha with the people that we trained, we asked them to go back to their State and see if they can identify who in the State would be responsible for a biosecurity event so that we would have that contact. Anything else, Ron?

Okay.

One of the other questions we seem to get is on the food security guidelines. And the question that comes up, why not mandate these food security guidelines? I see a couple nods on the panel. Would anyone like to try to field that one or ...Everyone is pointing to the acting administrator. I think this is fun to stand up here and see if we can stump the panel.

>>MR. HUDNALL: Well, I have read the food safety guidelines. I was not here when they were being developed, but I certainly have read them now and I understand them. I think it's arguable, whether we have the authority to mandate them in normal times. Certainly at the point that we have a threat to food safety, I think our authorities under our existing statutes are extraordinary, and I think we could do just about any of those things should the need arise. I think it is probably a better question though for the attorneys as to whether or not we can do it in peace time.

>> MR. MAJKOWSKI: Thanks, Bill.

Omaha is back on the line. Go ahead, Omaha.

>> CALLER (Ms. Kelly): Hi, this is Karlease Kelly. As you all know there is some biosecurity awareness training that is taking place for front-line field supervisors and I got a call today from a facilitator of that training and the question that came up is, if a plant receives a threat of tampering with a food product, are they required to notify FSIS?

>> MR. SMITH: We have direction in our emergency procedures Directive about product tampering. We would certainly encourage any plant, and that would be part of the discussions as we sit down and talk about the industry guidelines that we are going to be putting out, that if they become aware of tampering incident, we would very much hope that they would alert us so that we can put those procedures in place. So we would strongly encourage people to do that.

Again, when the plants receive the industry guidelines, that should be a topic of conversation, not only understanding what the plants should are doing to put in place physical security and other measures for their facilities, but in case of a tampering incident that we're there to be able to report that to if they are not comfortable reporting it through the local folks. Again, they can have access to the Technical Service Number, again, on that 800 number.

>> MR. MAJKOWSKI: Yeah. Let me just re-echo what Bill has said. We need those sorts of events to be reported. We really need to start cataloguing them, begin taking a look at, is there something else going on out there? An event with a meat or poultry product, if we should have a tampering event, we fully intend to notify FDA and talk to them, what tampering events have they had occur, it could be a pattern, and we need to collect that information and not just view these anymore as very isolated incidents.

We do have another caller from Seattle. Go ahead, Seattle.

>> CALLER (Ms. Evans): This is Kathy Evans circuit supervisor in Washington State and I was curious about the training for that inspectors that I had heard about. Can anyone elaborate on that, on the plans for that?

>>MR. SMITH: The training that we have right now is part of our front-line supervisory accountability and biosecurity awareness training and in that training, I believe, what we are doing is making people aware of the industry guidelines and aware of their continuation of operation procedures and responsibilities. That is the -- that is to train them, that we are doing right now, and that should be concluded by the end of September. That goes to all front-line supervisors.

We have also trained a cadre of folks, Mr. Majkowski was talking about earlier in Omaha, that are able to present and discuss the industry guidelines with the industry and would be available also to share that with our people. And in a meeting, district meeting or some kind of forum like that.

>> MR. MAJKOWSKI: And in addition to that, we have a plan for training and we are looking at developing distance learning modules for people in the field and the District Offices. And we're working on that right now. And so there will be some additional training.

We do have another caller on the line from Utah. Go ahead, Utah. Anyone there?

>> CALLER (Unidentified): I was wondering on your training, are we going to be able to get training to our GS-7s on the slaughter lines?

>> MR. MAJKOWSKI: Question was training for our -- the on the slaughter lines.

>>MR. SMITH: Presently. I think we need to wait for the development of the distance learning and Mr. -- that Mr. Majkowski was talking about. The training is to the front-line supervisors to be able to interact at the local level with the plants. We have 1100 front-line supervisory people in the field, which should be sufficient for this point to get the industry training or the industry guideline awareness and be able to answer those questions and of course we have the Technical Service Center.

We do want, again, all our people to be aware of industry guidelines but also emergency procedures, emergency evacuations, those kind of things, which they are already aware of. We have again, procedures if there is a tornado or hurricane or emergency of any kind, we already have direction on that and we would expect our people to follow those kinds of directions in the case of an event.

>> MR. MAJKOWSKI: I’ll follow up on that in a second.

Let me repeat the number in case you missed it: 1-800-832-7259. And the local number is 202-720-8436.

I think if people are listening I ever you will think the training we are trying to do, one of the things we need to do is make sure we here at headquarters have a plan in place, how we are going to respond to emergency. We need to fine-tune that and then we want to bring it down to the district level. When we get that down to the district level, then we will be able to better -- better discern how it is going to impact those in the plants and the training that we need.

We still need to develop some awareness training that is going to be distance learning training and will proceed to do that.

Any questions from the audience?

One of the questions that we -- we've gotten over time also is what is the Agency doing for communications in remote areas where cell phones, pagers and so forth don't work? And fax machines aren't available? It is a good question. We do realize that many of us that are carrying cell phones go into dead areas, how best can we communicate with people? We are looking into that and working on that. We don't have an answer for you today but we are aware of this problem and we are looking at that.

One of the other questions that continually comes up is how will I be informed if a food emergency occurs? And how do we normally -- normally contact people when there is an emergency?

>>MR. SMITH: Well, I’ll let you talk about headquarters. But again, I want to reiterate for the people in the plants and the field, that they are to follow the emergency evacuation procedures, which is to be posted in every government office. And that would be the procedures we would expect them to follow.

>> MR. MAJKOWSKI: And here in headquarters, we are setting up the -- a system to notify key people should an event occur so that no one person has -- is responsible for calling everyone. And we should -- we have a contact list for our Emergency Response Team now available. We are fine-tuning that and hopefully we'll have that available and ready to roll in the next -- or so.

We do have a caller from El Paso, Texas. Go ahead, El Paso.

>> CALLER (Unidentified): Yes, thank you. Some time ago, there was a statement or a comment made by Dr. Murano as far as deputizing inspectors. Can you kind of please talk a little bit about that? Thank you.

>> MR. MAJKOWSKI: OK, could you just repeat that? I had another message coming into my ear piece here. I'm sorry.

>> CALLER: Yes, sir. Some time ago Dr. Murano was addressing the industry and mentioned something to the effect about deputizing inspectors. Could you please clarify that if that is something that is still being talked about or -- thank you.

>> MR. MAJKOWSKI: Okay. Thank you. I'm not sure what you are referring to but we have had several meetings in PrepNet and we speak of an event occurring, we have certain requirements in terms of where we can use our people and how we can use them. And we are restricted many times by our budget and how that money is expended.

I think we were -- the comment was being made whether we could cross-utilize each - people from other agencies. Would we be able to assist FDA and FDA products and particularly in an FDA plant? One of the things I will mention that the Department is looking at is developing an incident command system or a system for responding to emergencies uniformly for each agency. And in that system, you develop memorandums of understanding so that agencies can be reimbursed when personnel are used for other activities.

We have a caller on the line from Washington, DC. Go ahead.

>> CALLER (Dr. Levine): This is Priscilla Levine speaking. As you know I’ve worked briefly with the F-BAT team here at OPHS and the ERT team, and I wonder if we are going to use those functions to expand on what we do on a regular basis and raise them to a new level or are we going to wind up creating new groups altogether?

>> MR. MAJKOWSKI: I think I can answer that question. Go ahead, Karen, and then I’ll respond.

>> DR. HULEBAK: The Emergency Response Team that has been referred to a couple of times today is a team of folks who have a function who are charged with responding in a crisis. It -- they are in a sense a virtual staff. Those folks who reside in OPHS aren't going to move to the Office of Food Security. They will continue to be in OPHS, but ready to respond in a crisis should, heaven forbid, such a crisis occur. As will hundreds, if not thousands of us respond if such a crisis occurs. But Jesse, did you want to expand on that?

>> MR. MAJKOWSKI: I just want to reiterate what you are saying is that the current systems that are in place, this Emergency Response Team, is not intended to override them. In fact, if you think of an event such as an outbreak that may be going on, we may be working through this outbreak, realizing that it is meat or poultry products that are involved and begin to think why are we seeing illnesses in California and Maine associated with four different plants and products or so forth? At that point we may begin to think that this may be an intentional act and at that point we may convene our teams – team actually to begin looking at, is it an intentional act or not? Meanwhile the other emergency functions within the agency would continue to control product, take actions on plants and so forth. And we would be looking at the much broader picture.

One of the questions that has come up and especially when we had the anthrax issues, was who is responsible for contacting local law enforcement, when should I contact them, or who should contact them? During the anthrax hoaxes that we had in several of the plants, we asked either the person reporting that or the District Office to contact local law enforcement as well as local -- the local OIG office. And so we are asking people when they have an event, something occurs, take responsibility to report it at the local level as well as reporting it up the chain so that we can alert our Office here and so we make sure that the event is reported.

I’m getting the message we don't have any more callers on the line. Did any of the panelists want to add any comments, concerns? Share anything?

Silent.

One other question we have gotten over time is the question about the laboratories and what are they doing and what are our plans for the labs? Let me just mention briefly that some time ago, back in '98-'99, there was a 50-State meeting, meeting that took place, and they were looking at how States and the Federal agencies could better coordinate their efforts. Out of that -- that meeting, grew a laboratory group that has continued to work and they are continuing to be working on those issues. Part of the items that they are looking at is how they can share information and data. Can they be -- can they be assured that the analysts, the analytical methods being used in one lab will be equal to the other, that we can react and use those? That work is going on. The labs are also looking at having better security on handling laboratory samples and mail that comes in. Karen, did you have anything else to mention to that?

>>DR. HULEBAK: I’ll add to your comments about the work that got started Through the 50-State effort which was really a grass-roots effort, begun at State level,not dictated out of Washington. It really grew up out of the States looking at how States could work better with Federal agencies and that effort really identified a number of positive steps that we could all take to work more collaboratively and cooperatively and efficiently together. And the sad events of September 11^th really kicked that work into high gear.

We're now establishing with in collaboration with AOAC, an organization - a professional organization of chemists and analytical chemists, electronic means of sharing analytical methodologies, validating them across laboratories, of sharing information electronically, more efficiently than we have been ever been able to do. That's a tremendous benefit to the country.

We have learned from fallout, from September 11^th, that we had some physical changes that we needed to make in our laboratory. We had some tough lessons we had to learn, but, we didn't just take the hit. We learned from them. And we have made the investment in building facilities in our labs so that incoming samples, incoming mail, comes to us separate -- apart -- a separate facility, separate from the major – the main part of the laboratories so that there is something – if something comes in that is suspicious, we can just close down one part, one free-standing building and not have to close down the entire laboratory. That kind of lesson we are really trying to build on and learn from and ultimately make all of our operations more effective.

>>MR. MAJKOWSKI: Thank you, Karen.

Not hearing any more phone calls, I think we will probably begin to close down the meeting and the -- and the calls. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the panel members for coming up and sharing that information and being on the spot, so to speak, to answer some of these questions.

Also I would like to thank all of those that came today and those that are out listening or watching -- watching us: We hope that you found this meeting helpful and informative.

Just a reminder that the webcast of this meeting will be available on the biosecurity page of the FSIS Web site for the next 30 days. We'll also make videotape copies available to any FSIS personnel. And if you need information on how to get a copy, you can contact the Public Affairs Office at 202-720-9113.

In addition to that, I would like to thank Marianne Elbertson of that staff who did a lot of work in setting this meeting up and making sure everything went right. Thanks, Marianne.

With that we'll close. Thank you!

[applause]

For Further Information:
FSIS Congressional and Public Affairs Staff
Phone: (202) 720-9113
Fax: (202) 720-5704

Speeches Menu | FSIS Home Page | USDA Home Page

Transcript of FSIS Employee Biosecurity Awareness Meeting August 27, 2002

Transcript of FSIS Employee Biosecurity Awareness Meeting
August 27, 2002