angeles county, california. that is followed by another campaign event at 7:00 with vice president kamala harris speaking to supporters in wilkes-barre, pennsylvania and at 10 :00 we will hear from former president trump once more as he holds a rally in las vegas. that is live on c-span and you can also watch our live coverage on the free c-span now video app or online at c-span.org. >> book tv every sunday on c-span 2 features leading authors. at five: 15 p.m. eastern, former commerce secretary wilbur ross shares his book, "risk and return," when he talks about his decades long career on wall street. at 6:15 p.m. eastern, dana bash

los at louisiana's reconstruction era gubernatorial election of 1872 and the political and racial violence that occurred in her book, "america's deadliest election." on after words, kim wei li, author of pardon power looks at the history of the pardon system, how it works and recent challenges the system is facing as she is interviewed by richard. watch book tv every sunday on c-span 2 and fd the full schedule in your program guide where watch online anytime at book tv.org. joining us now is barbara from george washington university who is that director for the institute of food safety and nutrition security. thank you for giving us your time. we invited you because of the outbreak of listeria. if you could remind the viewers at home about this outbreak. >> this outbreak is associated

with boar's head deli meats and it is caused by a foodborne pathogen that can be very serious particularly for pregnant and postpartum women, people over the age of 65 and anyone with a compromised immune system. it occurs naturally in the environment and it is a big problem in ready-to-eat products like hotdogs, soft cheeses and deli meat. there was contamination in the establishment that was producing the product and it has caused nine deaths and 57 hospitalizations. and over 7 million pounds of the product has been recalled. when the stories came out, one of the stories that you saw was he actually plant -- was the actual plant itself, just to show you the headline, bugs,

mold and mildew being found. where does it get to a point where that is being found in a place that puts together food. guest: that is a great question and one that a lot of people in the food safety community have. in a ready-to-eat establishment like the one producing that product it should be sanitized and cleaned every shift. multiple times. to see mold which takes a long time to grow, that suggests that it was not being cleaned on a regular basis and it should have been. i have read all of the noncompliance report cited by the virginia department of agriculture sciences. i was appalled. they talked about taking the cover off of one piece of equipment and the room smelled rancid. there was meat around the equipment caked, and that should not happen. these violations were going back a year. it raises the question of where

was the management and the establishment at boar's head, where was the managing with the regulatory agencies and why didn't they do something sooner? host: how do the inspections come to play when looking at the places that manufacture these products on the local, state, or federal level? caller: -- guest: boar's head is federally inspected because it crosses state lines so it falls under the jurisdiction of the u.s. department of agriculture food safety and inspection service. the safety inspection service does sometimes enter into cooperative agreements with states and virginia is one of them, where they have been deputized the inspectors in the state to conduct the inspections for them. under federal inspection regulations for meat and poultry, if you are producing these products you have to be inspected on a daily basis.

but someone has to inspect regularly. if you are slaughtering animals, then it has to be continuation inspections, a usda or state inspector has to be there continuously. but in inspector would come into -- an inspector would come into the establishment and they would look at equipment, the walls, the coolers, the floors, they are looking for potential problems and listeria we know is an environmental pathogen, it is out there and grows at room temperature and in cold temperatures and we know that it likes to live in drains and water. one of the things that an inspector would look for is is there, -- condensation dripping onto product, are there dripping pipes or a leaky roof or drains that are flooding. all of those are documented in the inspection reports from that establishment. host: one of the reports

ntiod what you said, this is saying that "a public affairs specialist said that the usda id the plant remain closed to demonstrate it can produce a this facility is inspected by the virginia department of agriculture and consumer services as part of the talmadge -aiken production program. the state's progress -- program must be at least equal and approved by the usda." guest: one of the questions is why wasn't the ute -- the unity -- usda auditing the program and where was the breakdown. was it that they did not move the complaint up? because typically, 69 different instances. this is going back to august of 2023. these illnesses and deaths could have been prevented that they were not. so we -- so where in the

regulatory process was the breakdown? all of the data collected were going into the usda inspection database. why wasn't anybody looking at the data? and i have a lot of questions for the regulatory agency and we have been asking them. but i want to be clear, boar's head had the ultimate responsibility of making sure that they were producing safe food for consumers and they failed. and we need to hold them accountable. host: if you want to ask her questions you can call the lines. 202-748-8000 for democrats. 202-748-8001 for republicans. independents, 202-748-8002. if you want to text us, 202-748-8003. the questions that you would ask questioningly, what would be the chief of them? guest: one of the questions that many of us have is typically,

establishments are supposed to test for listeria or a contest for an indicator organism of the species. so where are the test results? why wasn't the plant testing, why wasn't the testing done by the regulatory agencies? and if they did test positive and i cannot imagine given the conditions of the plant that you would not test positive, why didn't they take action sooner? it raises questions about there is another system in place that in my opinion failed, so most plants are audited by third-party auditors. and these are certification schemes and there are a lot of different ones. and they want to make sure and many buyers who buy boar's head products or other products will hire suppliers to have the certification audits completed

staying devastating that they are making food safety standards. this plant got an excellent rating and may of this year on one of those scans. the question is why didn't the scheme find the problem? you have a breakdown at the plant, management, the virginia regulatory agency, the usda, and you have it within the buying community and within the certification schemes. and they should not have happened. we know listeria is a big problem in ready-to-eat products. back in 1998 we had a huge outbreak from sarah lee. 2008, another one from maple leaf foods. the question is when we are going to learn our lesson. host: if and expectorant shows up on any -- on any level does a complement -- does a company

automatically have to grant them access? guest: yes. the company cannot say you cannot come into the establish. if they are not operating they could ask the inspector to wait until operations begin. they cannot deny an inspector coming into the establishment, not if they want to have the usda mark of inspection. host: our guest will answer the questions. this is steve starting off in pennsylvania. republican line. you are on. go ahead. caller: thank you for taking my call. i work in the food safety industry. i work for the various food industries and i have several different meat plants, big industrial scale like the one in virginia. your description of what the usda inspectors are supposed to do is spot on with my experience and what they should be doing.

the fact that a plant can have that much -- that many violations when it comes to mold and listeria hits and drains is totally unacceptable and also sounds criminal to me. but, thank you for your spot on analysis of what should be going on. guest: yes. and i thank you for your comment. and honestly i agree with you. i think this does go into the realm of being more than just a breakdown in failure. if you are in the business of producing food, you need to realize you have a moral obligation to produce the food as safely as you can. this is a product that people will take and put into their bodies and it will directly impact their overall health. and the producers here need to be held accountable. host: let us hear from barbara

in the bronx. democrat line. caller: good morning. the first thing that occurred to me is that if this plant was producing caviar, i wonder if the inspection would be so lax. and the second thing i thought about was that i am died in the wool democrat. i listen to trump saying that he wants to get rid of a whole bunch of government bureaucrats. and i am beginning to believe that maybe he is right. people will not do their jobs they will never get fired and never get punished. why do we keep paying them? nothing ever changes. i remember a couple of years ago it was peanut butter. and the same thing, a disgusting sanitary situation in the factory and nobody does anything and you never hear about them getting fired. what is the use of having these inspectors? thank you. guest: a lot to unpack.

but, first of all i want to say that i know a lot of people who work in the food safety regulatory agencies and they are good people. and they are very dedicated to protecting public health. a couple of points. our food safety oversight system in the united states is very fragmented and that is part of the problem and why you see failures. usda regulates meat, poultry processing and catfish. the fda regulates everything else. and often they delegate things to the states. most retail food inspections and the inspection of restaurants and so forth are usually conducted by the states and local level. unfortunately and if i had graphs with me i can show you that the funding for these agencies have been pretty flat over time.

and that is one of the challenges is that they do not have the resources needed to hire inspectors. and inspecting jobs are really tough. you travel a lot and you often live in rural areas with a lot of -- and you need a lot of education. the pay is not that great. and so they have trouble recruiting people to work as inspectors. i am going to go back. personally i would not advocate for getting rid of the public health agencies that oversee the safety of food. they catch a lot of problems that you do not hear about. there is a lot a prevention that does go on. ultimately the company is the one responsible for this overall failure. they did not have a culture of safety. so, as the earlier caller said who worked in sanitation and hygiene, the fact that there were sony problems happening

suggested that they were not prioritizing the health and well-being of their customers. in my opinion it seems like they were not -- they were prioritizing profit over that. host: you talked a little bit about money. july 15 usda says we will have 1% less in the budget. the budget will be about $1.24 billion up by 33 million dollars that year. as a figure that is big but not big enough? guest: not big enough. so again, a lot of our surveillance systems and the public health agencies got a huge influx during the pandemic of funding which was very helpful and that funding is starting to go away. they have been under resourced for a very long time. these incremental budget increases that we are seeing are really playing catch up. host: did covid impact the

inspection system itself? guest: in several ways. any of the state and local health departments and agricultural departments that were charged with overseeing covid response are also the ones charged with overseeing restaurant inspections. so they did in some cases stop doing restaurant inspections and the fda did stop doing some inspections. just to be clear, the usda meat, come -- poultry, eggs and catfish plants have to be inspected on a daily basis by and large. the fda is a completely different regulatory paradigm. before the food safety modernization act which was passed in 2010 and is still being implemented today, sad to say, they before that were on average once every 10 years. it is now hitting once every

five to seven years. and if you look at the number of food businesses in this country, there are not enough inspectors to be able to go to each one. and that was part of the problem with peanut corporation of america is that that fell under the jurisdiction of the fda and they before the food safety modernization act was implemented did not even have to register as a food facility and now they do. so peanut corporation of america has food can -- facilities that the regulars did not know about that. host: barbara kowalcyk from george -- george washington university. independent line. hello. caller: i worked in construction for quite a while and we have to do regular tests on concrete and wells and other structures and if we fail to do the tests and they fail, and someone is killed as happened several times through building collapses we could be held liable for gross

negligent homicide. do the same rules apply to the food companies who fail to test and and people get sick and die from outbreaks? guest: a great question. i wish it happened more often than it does. so, in peanut corporation of america, the leadership of that company was tried and did receive criminal charges and they are in jail. and that was one of the first instances of that. typically there are lawsuits filed by those people impacted and their families against the company itself. so a $10 million lawsuit was filed yesterday on behalf of a woman in georgia who was impacted by this outbreak. the problem is is that that often -- you hear about that but there are many cases that do not ever make it to litigation.

unfortunately it is a good stick, but not an effective one. sometimes it is really impactful and i do not know if you are old enough to remember, there used to be a chain called chichi's and sizzler and they no longer exist because they had outbreaks and the lawsuits that ensued put them out of business. that also brings into questions about insurance requirements and the insurance industry trying to make sure that their clients are meeting the best safety standards. host: i know you said it is fragmented depending on if it is a plant or restaurant, who sets the sanitation standards? guest: the sanitation standard is set by usda under the regulatory framework. if it is a restaurant it is set by the state. so the fda has a model food code

and that is developed and implemented by the conference for food protection. and then each state can adopt or have a modified version of that food code and that is what the state inspectors regulate to in the restaurant business. again on the fda side when you have a peanut corporation of america, those inspections are set by fda. host: rick from pennsylvania. republican line. you are on. caller: hello. where i go boar's head is popular. are they pulling just some of the meats from boar's head or are they pulling all of them? thank you? guest: that is a great question and i would occurred you -- encourage you to ask the retailer if they have pulled the appropriate products. 7 million pounds have been recalled with certain production

dates. but sometimes retailers miss them. there have been cases where they have recalled products that are still being sold. it should not be. if you are concerned at the other thing i would encouraged -- the other thing i would encourage you to do is check your refrigerator because the sell by date is into october. if it is in your refrigerator thrown away or take it back to the retailer and be sure to clean and sanitize your refrigerator. listeria loves to grow at cold temperatures. so most pathogens if you put stuff in the refrigerator it will kill the pathogen but the pathogen will not grow anymore. listeria is not like that and it can create biofilms, and that is one of the challenges they will have in cleaning the plan. my concern is that the listeria

is so well-established that there are biofilms in place and they are hard to break down once they have gotten started. host: the whole refrigerator and not just the deli been? guest: take out the entire -- clean out the entire refrigerator. clean it with warm, soapy water and have it -- and sanitize it with a bleach that she -- solution. and then wipe it down again. do not want any condensation sitting in your refrigerator. if it is there it will help it grow. host: richard blumenthal talked about this and what he wants congress to do. i want to play what he had to say and get your response. [video clip] >> 69 sector violations -- separate violations and no enforcement act. none. that is outrageous. and i want to know why. that is why i have written to

the inspected general of the department of aji -- of agriculture asking for an investigation by an independent investigator. the inspector general who has the responsibility for exactly this kind of failure at the department of agriculture. this listeria outbreak could have been prevented and should have been. the deaths and sicknesses were avoidable and i am asking the inspector general of the united states department of agriculture to tell me why there was no wood -- no effective enforcement action to close this facility and cause it to improve the facility to avoid the mildew and mold that eventually caused listeria to have this tremendous opportunity to infect the meat products that were sent around the country and eventually forced a recall of 7 million pounds of product.

[end video clip] host: what do you think about the route? guest: there needs to be an investigation to understand where the breakdowns were. as i mentioned i think they are multilevel. and i think we need to make change to ensure it does not happen again. host: cindy in kentucky. democrats line. go ahead. caller: yes and thank you for c-span and for this food safety program that you have. i moved from florida to kentucky and there is a lot of farmland around. and the only really grocery store, there is the walmart and miser and aldi and i do not like those. i have been going to kroger and there are several times that i have walked into that kroger and it smells like farms. and then i went to go in get

springwater, a case of springwater and i ended up not buying it because they had it sitting on pallets that smelled like a newer. -- manure. and now i saw the article where kroger will not bring down prices and less -- unless they merge with albertson's and they are holding the americans hostage to higher costs, i am boycotting kroger. i will drive 20 miles out of my way to go to another grocery store. but i would like to know about that safety of water being on pallets. host: thank you. guest: so, obviously sanitation and hygiene is super important in any food retail facility or food processing facility or food producing. i cannot really comment on the

pallets and the water. but, you know any time see something like that and i am not shy. when i go to the grocery store i have seen things that are questionable and i asked for a manager and say hey, i am concerned about this. i often have to tell them i am a food safety expert and they need to do some retraining. but there are ways that when you see something concerning in a food retailer whether it is a grocery store or a restaurant to report that to the state or local health department because they are the ones who have jurisdiction. and you can inform them. usually that information is on the website. host: deborah ross, a democratic congresswoman from north carolina who wants to push through legislation that would keep americans safe by giving " the fda the statutory authority

to share important information with state and local regulatory agencies which conduct most food safety inspections." you would think this is happening already. guest: unfortunately it does not happen like it should. many government agencies you other government agencies as external parties. and this has happened before back in 2007 and 2008. there was a tomato salmonella outbreak and you had the public health departments in a specific state who were not willing to share information with the cdc. it happens all the time and it happens both ways. i agree that there should be better ways of communicating between agencies. i served on a panel one time and we were looking at sharing of information from public health departments to to the federal regulatory agencies and they

could not upload it electronically so they had to fax it over due to firewalls. and it had to reentered at the federal agency. the challenge is we hear about these hacking events and things which also makes it hard to share data when you need to. host: philip in new york. independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. everything in this country is elated by money. over 20 years ago the government passed a law or they were supposed to pass a law where they are not supposed -- supposed to put nitrates in packaged meats, ok? but aust -- oscar meyer and boar's head are still allowed to put nitrates in their meats. and nitrates are well-known to give people can't -- pantry -- pancreatic cancer but nobody

says anything about it because somebody has been paid off. you are feeding your children bacon and staff and it has stuff that causes people to come down with pancreatic or liver cancer. and they were supposed outlawed. there is obviously money talking. guest: yes. so, i do not know a whole lot about the nitrites. i know there is a huge concern and people should limit their consumption. i will say that would fall under typically the jurisdiction of fda, because anytime you have food additives those fall under the jurisdiction of the fda. it could be strengthened. in terms of looking at generally recognized as safe, that system does need upgrading.

in my opinion it is not risk and science-based. and we need to do more work but i cannot really comment on nitrites in specific. host: if tainted food gets out to the public what determines when it is safe to eat it again, but what determines how do you find that food and how it does not become a danger anymore? guest: this is one of the challenges. i work on microbial food safety. you cannot see, taste, or smell these things. a consumer relies on the producer and the regulators to be doing their jobs properly. you can certainly do safe food handling, things like cook foods to a proper temperature and use a food thermometer. do not rely on color or smell. also, cleaning, watching cross-contamination in the

kitchen. washing your hands before and after you prepare raw meats and poultry products. but there is not much that consumers can do. you can ask the retailer. if you are ever concerned and you know there is an outbreak and you do not know if the product is still being stole -- sold you can go ask the manager and say hey, i saw about this outbreak, where you part of the recall? host: joe in new york. republican line. caller: i have easy questions. my question is my problem is why isn't there a law on the expiration dates of the products that we buy in the store? if you do find the expiration date on bread, it is on the tag

and you throat away you cannot find it on the package. there are also a lot of packages that have the expiration date on it but you have to have an ocular eyes to find it -- bino cular eyes to find it and if it is printed it is probably printed on top of more print. there are many times where i bought products without any expiration date on it. and is there a law that should -- that all foods should have an expiration date on it and make it where you can visibly see it without searching for it or throwing the tag away? that is my first question. my other is my daughter last week was talking about the red dye that they use in food and she was saying that it is bad --

banned and a lot of country but not this country. and my other question is that why don't we have a roundtable on this show? i think it would be fantastic. thank you. host: he started off talking about expiration dates. guest: great questions and a lot of confusions about expiration dates. so there are certain things where the different agencies require in terms of labeling but it is always hard keep up. one of the biggest issues is it is really confusing. you have the sell by date, used by date, best by, and it is always very difficult to set -- to understand edges for quality, so how well does it taste and the texture versus safety. so, in terms of canned foods. canned foods have expiration

dates on them. most food safety people do not worry about the expiration dates on canned food if it is commercially canned. it just means that beyond that date it might not taste as good as it otherwise would. and companies want you to consume the products when it still tastes good. but, for example and similarly if it goes beyond that and if it is stale or moldy, but those are not safety issues but quality issues. use by dates tend to be about safety when you want to pay attention and not use it beyond that. if you see used by dates on fresh meat and poultry products or fish products you do want to pay attention to those. of course if you ever open any food product and it smells bad you probably should not consume it. that bad smell comes from spoilage organisms that will not make you sick except for the

taste or the smell. but it also could be an indication that the product was abused and there might be other pathogens that you cannot see or smell or taste. and that might make you sick. host: two years ago you wrote aps called remember -- a peice called remembering kevin there is no accountability. would you talk about that? guest: i began my career working as a statistician doing clinical research in the pharmaceutical industry. in 2001 my 2.5-year-old son kevin contracted e. coli and went from being perfectly healthy to dead in 12 days. we did matt -- the strain of the pathogen matched a meet recall in the state that we lived in which was wisconsin.

unfortunately that is not sufficient to prove product liability, we had to prove that he consumes the recall to meat which is hard to do because companies are not required to keep track of where their product is going. so they sell it to a distributor who then sells it and they do not have to keep track of that. so, we were represented by a leading food board -- foodborne illness attorney in the united states and he spent three years investigating and ultimately we drop the lawsuit because we could not prove that he ate that recalled meat. even in the state of wisconsin because of tort reform, he was only worth $1 million. host: when you go through the process at least on the legal front, what is the success rate for people like yours? guest: that is the point, a lot of people here about the success

stories --hear about the success stories where there is a lawsuit and the family gets compensated but there are many stories like mine where there is no accountability. that plant is still operating today. they have had additional recalls and outbreaks and every time they do my husband and i get upset. i will say we did not go after it for the money. it was not about the money. we wanted this company because they had had ongoing safety problems and to change the way they did business or get out of it. if litigation was the only way to do that then that was what we are willing to do. host: thank you for sharing that. we are hearing from jim in missouri, the democrat line. caller: not long ago it was made public that some of these plants were using underaged children to do cleanup at night.

that might be a problem. donald trump has long railed against regulations. well we are talking regulations here. deconstructing the administrative state, it is the administrative state that enforces these regulations. that is about it. guest: yes. so, great point and i would agree with you. i think we need to strengthen food safety oversight, not go backwards. we have had a lot of improvements over the years, and even since i started working in food safety i have seen improvements. i say we are running a marathon and not a sprint and climbing up a mountain while doing it. incremental changes are important. but the whole reason the fda exists is because of upton sinclair's "the jungle," and the

problems they found in the meatpacking industry in chicago. and i am afraid we will go back there. it is disheartening to me about the children that have been employed in some of those plants by the sanitation crews. i read some of that. so a company typically hire somebody outside of the company, a sanitation and hygiene company to come in and clean the plan. my understanding is what happened is that he sanitation and hygiene company is the one that was hiring these children. and the reality is is that we have a lot of immigrants who are working in these plants. and a lot of immigrants who work in our field taking the blueberries or strawberries and produce and/or harvesting -- and are harvesting leafy greens.

and we need a way to help and protect them. host: one more call from sylvia in california. democrats line. caller: yes. a great topic today. i worked in the food industry, cannery and poultry. my question is, when i worked in the poultry business, the usda used to say defrost the turkeys and repackage them as fresh turkeys. i actually brought it up to one of the usda inspectors that were there, and the packaging -- the frozen packaging was on the floor and he said well, these are fresh turkeys. and i said look at the packages on the floor.

my question is, who is watching the weed -- the usda inspectors because obviously they had a plan going with the company. host: we are almost out of time so we believe your question there. guest: yes. great question and this is something that came up in this outbreak with boar's head is typically inspectors should be moved around. they should not stay for an extended period of time because i may get chummy, and then you get situations where people might say i might look the other way right now but you do not want them to do that. one of the questions we need to ask in the boar's head situation in particular is how often do they move the inspectors. it is also really difficult again, i mentioned earlier, inspectors typically work in rural areas. they are not paid well and so it is really important that we educate them -- train them i

should not say educate, they have a lot of education. train them properly, and retrain them. one of the things of the things that the boar's head outbreak demonstrates is that we need organizational culture change. we need organizational culture change within the industry and organizational culture change within the regulatory agencies. host: the website is foodsafety at >> c-span's washington journal our live form involving you to discuss the latest issues in government, politics and public policy. from washington and across the country. coming up friday morning we will look at the economic policy proposals of vice president kamala harris and former president donald trump with oren cass and brendan do with the

center for american progress action plan. and then heather will talk about the british prime minister's visit with president biden tomorrow and the state of u.s.-u.k. relations. c-span's washington journal, joined in the conversation live at 7:00 eastern friday morning on c-span, c-span now or online at c-span.org. ♪ >> as the 2024 presidential campaign continues, american history tv presents a new nine part series, historic presidential elections. learn about the pivotal issues of different eras and explore their lasting impact on the nation. this saturday at 7:00 eastern, look at the election of 1860 when abraham lincoln defeated several other candidates to become the first republican elected president.