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Describes motivation process for creativity with emphasis on intrinsic motivation by Corey K Katir
In perhapsthe most severe set of penalties that we have seen for public inspection file violations, the FCCreleased two sets of fines to stations that had self-reported, in their license renewal applications, that they did not have Quarterly Issues Programs lists in their public file for the entire 8 year license term. As we recently wrote, $10,000 fines for missing Quarterly Issues Programs lists have become the new standard where a substantial number of the lists are missing. Here, however, there were no timely filed lists at all in the public files for the stations in question – for an 8 year period. In one case, where the owner had both an AM and an FM stations, both were missing the Quarterly lists, the Commission proposed a fine of $20,000 ($10,000 for each station), and renewed the station licenses for only 4 years, not the normal 8 year license renewal term. A similar fine was proposed for a college-owned noncommercial station, also missing the required Quarterly lists for the entire license period – and that station also received a4 year license term.In each case, the licensee had indicated that it was doign some renewal-time recreation of missing Quarterly lists, but these efforts did not seem to result in any lessening of the penalties proposed by the FCC. These fines and short-term license renewals show just how importantly the FCC treats these violations.
We do note, however, that where the missing lists are from but a few quarters, the FCC’s fine is somewhat reduced, witness a recent $4000 fine for lists missing for just over a year – where the violations werefrom the beginning of the license term rather than being of recent vintage. But if you are missing list from some longer period of time- seemingly about 2 years – that $10,000 fine seems to kick in. Check you files now to make sure that you don’t fall into the $10,000 trap.
The Senate on Monday approved, after months of delay, the nominations as new FCC Commissioners of Democrat Jessica Rosenworcel and Republican Ajit Pai.Once they are sworn in and assume their new jobs in the next few days,this will bring the FCC up to full strength with 5 seated Commissioners for the first time in a year. Rosenworcel comes from having worked for the Senate Commerce Committee, which oversees FCCregulation. She previously worked as a legal assistant to former Commissioner Copps at the FCC. Pai has also worked on the Hill and at the FCC, so both have experience with issues before the Commission.
So what do these nominations mean for broadcasters? Probably, not much in the immediate term. With the two new Commissioners being added to the FCC, the balance of power remains in favor of the Democrats. But, as we have seen over the years, most Commission decisions aren’t decided on a partisan basis – in fact most are unanimous.In the recent past, there are a few decisions where the Commission has been somewhat divided, with Republican Robert McDowell tending to take a somewhat more deregulatory position, as in connection with the recent ruling on online public inspection files for TV stations. But party affiliation is not necessarily a guide to a Commissioner’s positions, as many of the proposals for broadcast re-regulation first arose during the Republican administration of FCC Chairman Kevin Martin (see, for instance, the proposals for localism regulation and the original proposal for an online public file adopted in 2007).
Having a full Commission does, however, sometimes lead to a more thorough vetting of controversialissues. Just having two more Commissioners, each with their own legal staff, to consider the often-controversial matters that come before the FCC can lead to a more thorough and nuanced review of all points raised in any debate. That is just human nature – the more people involved in a decision, the more points of view that will be represented in the debate. From time to time, it may be one Commissioner, or one legal assistant, who becomes the expert on a nuance of an issue, and his or her position can influence the ultimate outcome of a decision. With so many important issues for broadcasters on the Commission’s docket – from the ownership proceeding, to the TV spectrum reclamation proposals through the incentive auctions, to the issues about the quantification of the public interest obligation of broadcasters through the new form to take the place of Form 355andthe quarterly issues programs lists – a thorough examination of every issue is alwayswelcome.Obviously, the specific positions that Commissioners will take on issues, and how they will interact with their colleagues and with the industries that they regulate,can’t be determined until well after they take office and get settled in their new roles. So watch the full 5-Commissioner FCC carefully over the next few months as these new Commissionersbegin to make their positions known and as they exert their influence over the direction of the FCC.
At its meeting today, the FCC voted to require that television stations maintain most of their public inspection files online, in a database to be created by the FCC (see the FCC’s Public Notice here).Whilethe details about this obligationhave not yet been released, from the comments at the FCCmeeting, much is already evident. All TV stations will have to post their files to an online server to be maintained by the FCC. Proposals for new obligations to post information about sponsorship identification and shared services agreements have been dropped, at least for now. Most documents not already online at the FCC will need to be uploaded within 6 months of the rule becoming effective. And, in the most controversial action, broadcaster’s political files will need to be posted to the new online database, though in a process that is to be phased in over time.
The political file obligation will apply at first only to affiliates of the Top 4 TV networks in the Top 50 markets. And only new information for the political file will need to be posted. Information in the file before the effective date of the order apparently will not need to be posted online, at least not initially. The requirement for posting the political file online will be reviewed in a proceeding to begin one year after the effective date of the new rules. Asstations outside the Top 50 markets, and other stations in those large markets, will not need to comply with the political file obligationsuntil July 2014, the FCC will be able to reexamine the impact of the disclosure obligations before the compliance obligation for the political file expands to all stations.
Issues about the posting of the political file dominated the conversation. Commissioner McDowell, the lone Republican Commissioner, suggested that the FCC missed an opportunity for compromise.Broadcasters concerned about the burden of uploading hundred or thousands of documents in the days before an election, and about the specific disclosure of their lowest unit rates in an on-line database available to anyone, anywhere, offered a compromise proposal that would have had them creating a summary of the candidate’s purchases on the station, but would not have given the actual rate information. McDowell suggested that the FCC start with that level of disclosure, and examine in a further proceeding if specific information about lowest unit rates needed to be disclosed online.
Commissioner Clyburn seemed to acknowledge the competitive concerns of broadcasters having to give out their lowest rate online, where everyone, everywhere, cansee it. From her days as a newspaper publisher, she stated that she knew how hard it was to negotiate with potential advertisers who were always looking for a better deal on rates. But the Commissioner said that she thought that the public demand for information – whether it be from candidates, regulators, public interest groups, whistleblowers or just people “with too much time on their hands” – outweighed the burden put on broadcasters. Commissioner Clyburn suggested that the review after the first year could determine if the publicity of the lowest rates really did cause problems.
FCC Chairman Genachowski was the least sympathetic to broadcaster’s concerns, essentially saying that, as the information was already in the station’s paper files, putting it online was just the modern way to do disclosure. He dismissed any claims that it would present a burden to broadcasters – claiming that it will actually save broadcasters money in the long run (query why the broadcasters would be objecting so much if the proposal really would save them money).
In fact, the theme that online disclosurewas the modern way of doing things, and that it would save broadcasters money, was repeated throughout the presentation. The Media Bureau attorney who presented the FCCdecisionsuggested that yearly compliance costs would be between $80 and $400 per station (a number that broadcasters I’m sure would find surprising). This question may well become one that will be crucial to the effective date of the proposal as Commissioner McDowell suggested that a Paperwork Reduction Act analysis of the order might prove troublesome.
More details of the proposal will be available when the FCC releases the full text of its order. We will update this summary when the text is out and we’ve had a chance to review it.
In the last few weeks, I’ve twice had the occasion to summarize the legal issues facing broadcasters, and itamazes me at how many issue there are and,how quickly the issues are changing.On April 12, I did an update on these issue to the Oklahoma Association of Broadcastersat their annual convention - the PowerPoint slides for which are available here. The week before, we prepared a summary of the issues facing TV broadcasters that was published in TV NewsCheck, here. It’s just overtwo weeks later, and already the issues that we highlightedhavechanged. Since we we wrote the TV NewsCheck article, a new issuefor television broadcastershas arisen as to the definition of an MVPD – an issuethat could have ramifications on all sorts of issues – including rules concerning must carry and retransmission consent. In recent weeks, the FCC has also revised its EAS rules to allow text-to-speech systems to read the alerts that come in from FEMA, the National Weather Service and other authorities. And theFCC meeting that will be held later this week will deal with many issues of importance to commercial broadcasters – including spectrum sharing (the first step in the Commission’s plan to clear some of the TV band so that it can be repurposed for wireless users) and the online public inspection file. Also on the agenda is a noncommercial item that will look at broadcast stations raising finds for third parties. That topic is an interesting one – coming only a short period after one US Court of Appeals Circuit suggested thatFederal prohibitions on noncommercial radio stations accepting ads from political and issue advertisers were unconstitutional.
In discussing issues with the Oklahoma Broadcasters, there were still many questions about the FCC requirement for a nondiscrimination certification in commercial station’s advertising contracts (see our summary of this issue here and here). Also a hot topic, particularly in light of the discussion of the online public file, was the question of what needs to go in the public file, and how long it needs to be retained (see our Checklist for the Public Inspection File, here). The rules for on-air contests, and the required on-air disclosures of the rules for such contests, were also much discussed (see our summaries here andhere). And, of course, with the November election looming, questions about broadcasters’ political obligations were on the minds of many (see our Guide to Political Broadcasting, here). Many, many issues face broadcasters – and these presentations only touch the surface.
Three broadcast items are tentatively scheduled for the next FCC meeting, to be held on April 27, according to the tentative agenda released today. In one expected action, though perhaps moving more quickly than many thought possible, the FCC has indicated that it will adopt an Order in its proceeding requiring TV broadcasters to place and maintain their public files on the Internet.A second broadcast item will adoptrules for channel sharing by TV broadcasters as part of the plan for incentive auctions to entice TV broadcasters to give up some of their spectrum for wireless broadband use. Finally, theFCC proposes to adopt a NPRM on whether to amendcurrent policies so as to permit noncommercial broadcasters from interrupting their regular programming to raise funds for organizations other than the station itself.
The first item is to determine whether to require that the broadcasters maintain anOnline Public InspectionFile,is a controversial issueabout which we wrote last week.The proposal for the online filegrew out of the FCC’s Future of Media Report (renamed the Report on the Information Needs of Communities when it was released last year, see our summary here). In that same report, it was suggested that the FCC relax rules applicable to noncommercial broadcasters that limit their on-air fundraising for third-parties, if that fundraisinginterrupts the normal course of programming. The Future of Media Report suggests that this restriction be relaxed so that noncommercial broadcasters be able to do block programming from time to time to raise funds for other noncommercial entities
In recent years, the FCC has issued blanket waivers to allow noncommercial stations to raise funds for relief groups bringing aid to areas where mass disasters have hit (see our articlesonwaivers granted for for Haitian earthquake relief, here, and for Japan earthquake and tsunami relief, here). It may be that the NPRM will address these types of situations. But, as controversies have arisen in other situations where noncommercial broadcasters enter into business relationships to preserve and expand their service (see our articlehere on some of the issues raised by the FCCin a case involving the sale of a noncommercial licensee and the objections to a pre-sale operating agreement or LMA),this proceeding may well address these more extensive issues.
The TV channel sharing item grow out of the FCC’s proposals that hope to recapture some more of the television spectrum to repurpose it for wireless broadband. Congress recently passed legislation (which we summarized here) to allow incentive auctions to try to entice certain TV broadcasters to give back their spectrum for re-auction by the FCC. Given that digital television technology allows for one television channel to now transmit several programming streams, the FCChad suggested that one option for broadcasters was for two TV stations to get together, agree to turn one channel back in to the FCCfor wireless use while putting both of their programming onto different streams on the second station,splitting auction proceeds,andperhaps even retaining must-carry rights for both streams.See our summary of the FCC’s proposals for channel sharing, issued just over a year ago.
Such a channel-sharing program will be but a first step in the long process of clearing some spectrum for wireless broadband. Even if the FCC adopts rules for channel sharing, it must still adopt rules for the spectrum auctions (both the incentive auctions by which TV stations offer to give up their spectrum in exchange for payment) and for the actual bidding on the cleared spectrum by wireless users. In addition, the FCC will likely want to repack the TV band, moving stations that don’t elect to give up their channels to a smaller part of the TV band, to clear the same TV channels so as to provide a consistent spectrum band across the country for wireless use. That plan, akin to the channel changes that took place when DTV was implemented, is no doubt a much longer, more complex process. So this is but the first small step toward the FCC trying to implement their plans for wireless broadband operations on what are now TV channels.
In any event, this may be a very important meeting for broadcasters. This NPRM on the new public file requirementsis also connected to the FCC’s proposal to create a disclosure form for public interest programming, which may be addressednext. Together,theseissuesmay makeAprila very busy and important month for broadcasters.
[Corrected 4/9/12, 4 PM to reflect that the FCC meeting will discuss the online public file, not the form for reporting on the public service of broadcasters, as originally indicated]
Rating: 5 Posted By: homerj31
Views: 2462 Replies: 32
I recently rented from Alamo at the FLL airport. I allowed the pushy agent to “upgrade” me to a premium Car on the condition that a certain car I was thinking of buying was available. The lot is in a parking garage behind the counter so he leaves for a while. When he comes back he then yells at a car porter and he says they will have one. So I complete the standard paper work declining gas/damage and he gives me my receipt. So when I finally walk with my Family with cars seats and bags, of course the car I want is not there. I tell the car porter I want to go back and get my original reservation rate and car class. He then tells me I can have any car there. So I take a Mini-van (got at a stolen price) and load up quickly as my 2 year old son need his “car” nap ASAP. The car porter quickly throws my bags in the back and runs away. I am thinking to myself where is the car inspection that I normally always do. So I drive the car to the gate attendant, she takes a copy of my receipt scans a bar code on the windshield. I said that is it? she nods. I leave.
Now I would normally would have been more pushy about the pre-rental inspection, but since I have the extra AMEX car protection plus every airport inspection was just a quick sanity check of major dings I just go on and enjoy my trip.
A week later I show up and the car checker notices a 2 inch “scratch” at the bottom of the rear bumper. Now they are worse dings on the car as it has over 22k miles and a New Jersey plate. So he writes up a ticket and I go to CS for discussion. I told them I was not responsible for it, plus they never got the opportunity to do a vehicle inspection. They said it was my responsibility? I was like WTF? do it on a napkin? I never got the standard paperwork. With two crying kids and A flight to catch, I just grabbed my receipt and left. Pre-rental or post rental, I never signed any paper indicating damages or the absence of damage to the rental car.
Now a week later Alamo is sending me a later for my CC and car insurance information.
What are my best options to resolve this.
(1) Ignore? They probably have my DL #. What can they do to my credit?
(2) Write a certified letter with the above info, tell them to pound sand and release me of the responsibilities.
(3) Call in and talk to them about the issue.
(4) Call AMEX and get them to deal with them.
(5) Sue them in small claims court for lying/pain/suffering/emotional distress.
I am thinking either (1) or (4).
Be gentle to a long time lurker. But funny comments are welcomed.
Thanks
homerj31
Personal Finance Deals
Rating: 11 Posted By: dipasquale14
Views: 4940 Replies: 87
Did a quick search and did not see any posts on the topic of buying a house without using a realtor. If there is one please direct me to the forum, if not looking for some advice. We sold our house a year ago and are currently renting. We will be looking to buy a house in south Florida in the next 6-12 months, no urgency. I realize that the seller pays the buyers realtor commission almost always, so the common answer I get is “use a realtor you are not paying for it”. To which I say I am paying for it, the seller knows they have to pay typically 6% to realtor fees on the sale of their home and price accordingly (I know I did, although my realtor only charged us 1.5% so it was 4.5%). My theory is, if I don’t use a realtor will I be able to save that 3%? On a $300,000 house that is $9000, a significant amount of money. I assume the downfalls of no realtor is the process would take longer, as could not drive around looking at houses and going into look at them. We would have to wait for the sellers agent to let us in. We would pay for the home inspection anyway so not losing that value by not using realtor. As far a doing comps, which is what realtors often site as their area of expertise, I am confident I could do a comparable job of finding comps and asking a fair price. Although in this market especially in south florida there are so many house available I plan on trying to offer a low ball offer on many houses and see who bites? Also on a somewhat wider topic, if buying a foreclosure or short sale from the bank with a buyers agent who pays their 3%? I assume the bak wont pay it does the buyer then pay that amount? Thnaks to all who read I know this long-winded but looking for some real wolrd answers or theoretical either way. IS there a benefit to a realtor and if so is is worth $9000? Has anyone bought without a realtor how did it go?
General Economics Deals
Rating: 2 Posted By: retirebyfourty
Views: 1895 Replies: 26
Will try to get the facts:
early 30′s/single net worth of 200k, found a house I like for 58,000. Price has steadily dropped since appearing on MLS since February (starting at 79k, then to 69, 63, and now 58.)
House facts: Built in 1957, 1220 sq feet with a 180 ft Florida porch added on, over half acre, ranch on a slab, no real attic, 2 bed/1ba, needs major overhaul with outdated carpet/etc (which doesn’t bother me), in a nice town and neighborhood, no garage but would like to erect one for under 5k, and has outbuilding in backyard. Older couple owned it, wife died, the executor of the will is a probate lawyer. It is listed on MLS thru a major realtor company in my area. Being sold AS IS.
The house seems structurally sound, its all brick, not much room for expansion with varying roof lines, but I’m fine with that. No plans for kids anyways. Girlfriend loves it (she would move in in another year.) Nice asphalt driveway. Nice trees and foliage.
Looked at the house yesterday, realtor told me another person was in the midst of writing their offer but hadn’t submitted it yet (sounds like a typical sales pitch.) I’m to get a home inspection tomorrow, which won’t do much since its being sold AS IS, but at least the realtor being there could potentially tell the executor of the will what the inspector says. I want to use the inspection as part of my leverage, though it may not help. It has been at 58k for 4 weeks now, due for another price drop. I’m looking to offer 44k cash. Everything is still in the house too, which I don’t care if it stays or leaves.
The way I see it, if your goal is to throw lowball cash offers, its a numbers game. Some will stick. But I wish to win this house with the lowest bid possible. Seeing the quick price drops makes me think they want the money and done. I also am curious how much lower they would take my offer in cash with no contingencies versus a loan. 5% lower statistically?
Anyone have any thoughts on this?
Thanks
Question Deals
Rating: 0 Posted By: titan01
Views: 1070 Replies: 11
Looking to buy a 1st home (condo). Approx price will be around 80 to 100k. What costs should I expect on top of the down payment. I’m trying to figure out what up front costs I will have to pay so I can set a budget for the home.
I understand that I would probably get a better interest rate if I do 20% down, so that’s what I’m going for. What else should I expect to pay and how much? For simplicity sakes, lets just say its a 100k home.
Lawyer fee?
Inspection?
Sales tax on entire cost or just down payment?
Insurance?
Closing costs?
Thanks for help.
Real Estate Deals
Rating: 0 Posted By: Waffles
Views: 825 Replies: 2
LINK
website said: Make your business more rewarding with 40,000 ThankYou Points*, redeemable for up to $400 in gift cards.
*Simply open a CitiBusiness Streamlined or Flexible Checking account between 5/1/12 and 6/30/12
*Within 60 days of account opening:
- Enroll your business checking account into Citi ThankYou Rewards
- Obtain an eligible cash management or credit solution
Hurry, offer expires 6/30/12.
*ThankYou Points will be credited to your Business ThankYou Member Account within 90 days from the end of the statement period in which you satisfy all offer requirements.
A quick inspection of minimum balance requirements seems to imply that if $5,000 is kept in the checking account for a year, this is roughly equivalent to 8% APY.
Personal Finance Deals
Rating: 0 Posted By: 07pilot4me
Views: 2350 Replies: 23
i searched and found a few mold related topics in the archives, so decided to make a new post.
short story:
moved into rental home in California, bathroom DOES NOT have a vent fan (which i thought was weird) 1990′s construction
Oct 2011, move-in inspection notes cracks in shower and bath tub tile
Dec 2011 – noted to property management that cracks seem to be expanding and new cracks are showing up (most of the cracks starting from partition/glass between bath tub and shower)
Feb/March 2011 – property management sends out a contractor to inspect cracks in tile. contractor says that they are most likely from the foundation shifting and that the prop manager will probably opt to NOT fix the problem.
May 2011 – contractor calls and sets up appt to fix the tiles (surprised by this), he tears appart tiles and reveals:
1) some water leakage from ???
2) mold
3) more tiles/foundation that are starting to crack
4) question as to how far the leak/mold has spread
needless to say, more problems than what I/property management/contractor expected
what are some of the things/steps that i need to make sure i do to:
1) protect myself/family and my security deposit
2) make sure the problem is fixed in a TIMELY MANNER (as it stands right now we cant use bath/shower for a week, possibly longer if owner balks on paying for repair)
basically asking what savvy FWF members (renters/landlords/lawyers etc…) would do in my situation
Personal Finance Deals
Southside Market & BBQ of Elgin, TX is recalling approximately 2,373 pounds of ready-to-eat beef sausage products that may have been contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced Wednesday.
The problem was discovered during routine FSIS testing. There have been no reports of illness.
The recall involves:
- 16 oz. packages of Southside Market & BBQ Original Beef Sausage, Lot # 065-E
- 16 oz. and 48 oz. packages of Southside Market & BBQ Original Beef Sausage, Lot #’s 065-A, 065-B, 065-C, and 065-D
- 16 oz. packages of Southside Market & BBQ 1882 Hot Recipe Beef Sausage, Lot # 065-D
Case labels or packaging may bear the establishment number EST. 21577 in the USDA Mark of Inspection. The smoked and fully cooked products were produced on March 5, 2012, and distributed to retail warehouses in Texas, as well as through Internet sales to California, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana and Texas.
For more information contact Bryan Bracewell, CEO of Southside Market & BBQ, at 512-285-3407.
Bob McDonald, Denver’s environmental health director, wants restaurateurs and the public at large to understand how the city now enforces inspections.
McDonald met Tuesday with some of Denver’s restaurateurs who are upset because more fines are being levied after inspections.
The city and county of Denver two years ago decided to adopt a new fee schedule for repeated critical violations while dropping its previous practice of posting the violations on the restaurant’s front door.
Restaurant owners did not like posting critical violations on their doors, and McDonald says the practice was not effective from a public health perspective because of appeals. Postings could not go up as long as a violation was being appealed.
That usually prevented the postings until long after the violation was corrected.
McDonald says under its new operating ordinance, postings are still used if environmental health officers close the restaurant or if the establishment poses an imminent threat to public health.
Those notices are posted immediately without regard to whether or not there is an appeal. “That notice stays up,” McDonald told Food Safety News.
McDonald says the city and county of Denver’s website also now not only includes a summary of the completed restaurant inspection form for each establishment, but also the inspector’s notes.
When the new fine schedule was adopted, McDonald says everyone knew it would generate more revenue, but not by more inspection activity. McDonald says he has the same inspectors making about the same number of yearly inspections.
Previously, Denver Environmental Health could levy a fine of $300 on the third consecutive critical violation. A critical violation involves something that is likely to cause foodborne illness. Inspectors are not allowed to overlook a critical violation.
Under its new ordinance, Denver imposes a $250 fine on the second repeat violation, and $500 for the third up to $2,000 in a 12-month period.
In its first full year of its implementation, the new fine schedule brought in $731,900 or roughly $600,000 more than the previous three years average, according to figures provided by the Colorado Restaurant Association (CRA).
That group reports that 55 percent of Denver’s 1,230 restaurants paid fines in 2011.
Denver spends more than $2.4 million on all public health inspections during the year, according to the adopted city-county budget.
Peter M. Meersman, president of CRA, also told Food Safety News the restaurant industry did not like the posting system because it was a “very severe penalty for sometimes routine violations.”
McDonald says it is a “misunderstanding” to depict Denver’s new system as part of any political fines for posting deal. “I would never agree to anything that did not advance food safety,” he says.
McDonald says city-county government remains open to suggestions, but he is confident the changes that were made are resulting in safer dining in the Mile High City.
Funding, media hype, data sharing among the many challenges
Many of us have experienced the frustration of learning of a foodborne disease outbreak and wondering why didn’t we know about it sooner, why we don’t know all the details we wanted to know, why the investigation wasn’t successful or why we weren’t informed of the final details.
There are challenges to foodborne disease outbreak, surveillance, detection and response. This article is not a long list of excuses, but rather some insights into the challenges that investigators face every day.
Background
Government and industry have been investigating foodborne illness and outbreaks for decades. These investigations occur at multiple organizational levels and they involve multiple components of organizations.
The complexity of the investigations and the multiple players involved invariably lead to coordination challenges. In government alone you can have local, state, federal and international organizations involved and at each level you can have epidemiologists, clinical laboratories, food laboratories and regulatory agencies all with overlapping roles and responsibilities.
Investigators need to quickly identify the vehicle (contaminated food) and alert the public to minimize further cases of illness and at the same time they need to be right.
In the U.S., the 1996 Cyclospora outbreak first linked to strawberries and later linked to raspberries and the 2008 Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak first linked to tomatoes and later to Jalapeno peppers are well-known examples of what can happen if an outbreak is incorrectly linked to a food.
Being wrong can cause serious economic harm to industry, reduce public and industry confidence in government and undermine support and trust for future investigations and findings. These issues are further complicated by a growing public and political distrust of government and science in general.
Foodborne illness outbreaks can generate tremendous public, media and political interest. Media and political demands for information can distract agencies struggling to complete their investigations. Because investigating agencies also must ensure the information provided has been vetted and confirmed, this often means the information is not provided as soon as others want it.
Congressional hearings after some past national outbreaks did help to raise awareness of foodborne disease, but the “theater” aspect of such hearings also can distort understanding of information that is available.
Although many people only hear about foodborne disease illness when it is linked to a nationally distributed food, that view is a very limited one. Most reported foodborne illness cases are so-called sporadic cases where no specific risk factor for illness is determined.
Approximately 1 – 5 percent of all reported sporadic cases of foodborne illness agents are ever linked to an outbreak. The victims themselves self-identify and report most foodborne disease outbreaks to state or local agencies. These outbreaks are often linked to local restaurants, investigated locally and often not reported in the media. Such outbreaks are not always reported to the Centers for Disease Control’s voluntary foodborne illness surveillance system, either. Many of these investigations are inconclusive, just like the multi-state investigations readers are more aware of.
The CDC’s PulseNet laboratory-based surveillance system has been successful in identifying many diffuse outbreaks since its inception in 1995. Many of these outbreaks involve illness cases that are widely dispersedgeographicallyand likely would not have been linked as being an outbreak without PulseNet.
These outbreak investigations have often resulted in greater public awareness of the food contamination due to public alerts and recalls. Difficult processes to develop and issue them often precede these alerts. Multiple agencies at local, state and federal levels can see message priorities differently and they can work under different rules for what they can say, all of which creates challenges in developing and providing consistent public information.
Our Government System
The men who created the U.S. Constitution distrusted central authority/power in government. Therefore, they created a federalist form of government with much authority and responsibility, including public health, residing in the states. Just look at our name. We are the “United States” of America, not America. Similarly, many states have home rule constitutions and other similar provisions such as commonwealth constitutions that call for government services and authority to be provided at the local level.
As a result, there are approximately 3,000 state and local agencies with some regulatory responsibility for food safety in the U.S. Many of these agencies also have their own epidemiology/disease surveillance programs and public health laboratories as well.
When it comes to foodborne disease surveillance, detection, investigation and response, there often is a lack of clarity over roles and responsibilities and decision-making authority. Staff qualifications and training levels vary and staffing levels have been declining.
Staffs who conduct these investigations usually have many responsibilities in addition to foodborne disease. Epidemiologists are conducting surveillance for many diseases and often have multiple investigations they are juggling at the same time, nurses who interview illness cases may also be providing immunization clinics and visiting homebound patients. Regulatory staffs have inspection quotas to meet.
Federal or state epidemiologists may need a follow-up interview on a sporadic case of illness that is a PFGE match to other sporadic cases around the country. Local nurses may have to juggle that request with their need to visit patients and conduct clinics.
Think back to the confusion during the government response to Hurricane Katrina. In multi-state foodborne outbreak investigations, government agencies at multiple levels are trying to work in a coordinated way with people they will never meet and over multiple time zones. The scale of such outbreak investigations is not as large as the hurricane response, but the coordination challenges can be similar.
Some of the smaller agencies that do not conduct many foodborne disease outbreak investigations suddenly find themselves thrust into a situation they are inadequately staffed or prepared for. Federal food safety agencies depend on under-funded state and local agencies to identify and investigate outbreaks linked to products that they regulate.
Nevertheless, staffs at all levels of government are invariably dedicated to public service and public health. This asset is drawn on in every investigation. When we talk about organizations that are more successful than others, this often reflects a few key individuals who are really making the difference.
Government at all levels is facing serious challenges with the loss of funding that translates into vacancies not being filled, supplies/equipment not being purchased or replaced, staff salaries and benefits being cut and travel being restricted.
Experienced staff is leaving for retirement before benefits are lost or to take better paying jobs elsewhere. New staff may not come with sufficient education/training for their functions and there is little or no funding to train them once they are on the job. Cuts in training, salary and benefits for new government hires will result in a different workforce in the future. We cannot predict what impacts this different workforce will have on government foodborne disease activities.
A discussion about government foodborne outbreak investigation challenges would not be complete with out mentioning information/data sharing.
All parties involved in outbreak investigations are prohibited from sharing patient identifiers, regulatory agencies are sometimes prohibited from sharing commercial confidential or proprietary information (processing methods, customer lists) as well as investigational findings that might be used in any future enforcement actions.
Some agencies have more institutional resistance to sharing information than others. These laws, regulations and policies can slow down investigations and lead to friction between investigation and response organizations over access to information.
Similarly, the food industry is looking for information about what is going on to help them inform government investigations, focus and speed up recalls and to rapidly put in place interventions to prevent future outbreaks. Consumer groups and the public want actionable information quickly to protect themselves and their families. Government agencies are looking for ways to be more transparent, but progress has been slow so far.
Epidemiology Challenges
Typical foodborne disease outbreak epidemiological investigations involve analytic studies to determine statistically significant associations between certain food exposures and illness.This is an iterative process, because the contaminated food is not known at the beginning of the investigation and may not be identified by the initial epidemiological studies.
Further, initial laboratory and environmental information may not be sufficient to help identify the vehicle. The investigations move as quickly as possible to identify the food and thereafter prevent additional exposures and illnesses. These investigations usually do identify the correct food, but mistakes have been made. Every investigation faces the same dilemma of needing to be fast to prevent additional illness and needing to be right to prevent identifying the incorrect food.
One of the key jobs of an epidemiologist is to collect and analyze disease data. The data needs to be accurate if the conclusions drawn from it are to be accurate. Much of epidemiologists’ time, therefore, is spent trying to improve the quality of the data they collect and trying to find ways to get more and better data.
The skills to perform these tasks are most likely gained with a graduate degree in epidemiology and yet many epidemiology offices have few if any staff trained at this level. Most epidemiologist’s, and public health laboratory staff, who conduct foodborne disease surveillance at the state and local level are funded by CDC grants, not the state or local agency they work for. That funding has been shrinking.
This loss of disease surveillance capacity could pose a longer-term dilemma along with the obvious loss of immediate outbreak detection capacity. The impact of the 2011 Food Safety Modernization Act on food safety will not be measurable if state and local agencies do not have the capacity to detect any changes in disease incidence and prevalence resulting from implementation of the act. Would any hoped for reduction in reported sporadic cases of illness and outbreaks mean that food is safer or that surveillance is less robust?
An article “Food Safety Epidemiology Capacity in State Health Departments – United States, 2010″ in the December 23, 2011 edition of the CDC’s “Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report” listed barriers state health departments reported to their foodborne disease surveillance programs.
The barriers are listed below with the number of states reporting each one:
-Delayed notification of outbreaks (41)
-Lack of foodborne safety staff (29)
-Lower prioritization of investigations (27)
-Lack of ability to pay overtime (20)
-Lack of adequate epidemiology expertise (12)
-Difficulties working with in-state agencies (8)
-Constraints in administrative support (8)
-Difficulties working with other state of federal agencies (5)
So-called stealth or hidden ingredients as vehicles are being identified more often in foodborne disease outbreaks. These outbreaks are also referred to as ingredient driven outbreaks. No doubt they have always been there, we just were not finding them. They may help to explain why so many outbreak investigations are inconclusive.
Two of the best-known examples of stealth ingredient outbreaks have already been mentioned. The 1996 Cyclospora outbreak first linked to strawberries and later to raspberries hinged on whether the chef who baked wedding cakes topped them with one type of berry or another and that in turn depended on price and availability of berries.
The 2008 multi-state Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak was first associated with tomatoes and later shown to be linked to Jalapeno peppers. That initial vehicle identification hinged on what questions were asked of early victims of the outbreak. Victims were asked if they had eaten tomatoes and peppers among many other foods. It is much easier to remember that you ate tomatoes in some form than that you ate Jalapeno peppers served in fresh salsa.Also, Jalapeno peppers had no history of being a Salmonella vehicle and tomatoes had been a vehicle for Salmonella many times in the past.
These examples and more recent ones involving ground pepper used as a spice in restaurants (Salmonella Rissen) and on processed meats (Salmonella Montevideo) point to how nuanced it can be to identify vehicles from epidemiological studies.
Investigators are looking for additional tools such as product testing and ingredient tracebacks to identify vehicles that case control or cohort epidemiological studies alone cannot tease out.
Similar problems have been vexing investigators in outbreaks where multiple ingredient foods like tomatoes and lettuce are served in the same dish (salad, sandwich). Mexican-style foods have been involved in several outbreaks in which tomatoes, lettuce, cheese and ground meat were served together in tacos and other similar dishes. All of these ingredients have been identified as food vehicles in the past, so how do outbreak investigators discover which one was contaminated when they are served and eaten together?
Laboratory Challenges
Laboratories are too often the forgotten partners in foodborne disease surveillance systems, even though a “gold standard” outbreak investigation includes laboratory confirmation of the agent in patient and food samples.
Laboratory surveillance enables the identification of sporadic case clusters that can lead to identifying otherwise unrecognized outbreaks. In some ways, the laboratory-based PulseNet system has become a victim of its own success. So many disease clusters are identified by this CDC led system that the epidemiologists and laboratorians have to triage what clusters they have the resources to investigate.
Thirty to 40 disease clusters are on their radar at any point in time. Unfortunately, the PulseNet system and public health laboratories in general are suffering from budget cuts that are threatening to severely limit the effectiveness of this vital disease surveillance system.
Laboratories can be left out of efforts to analyze the data that they have generated and from planning to develop new surveillance systems. Public health labs can have a very hard time keeping up with new technologies as they lack the resources to conduct proof of principle studies to demonstrate the value of moving to those technologies.
Laboratories also can struggle to maintain standardization of methods. Under the best of circumstances, they are not always going to be able to recover an agent from a sample even if it is there. Laboratories can be left out of planning for ongoing investigations as well as be left out of planning and implementation of interventions after an investigation.
Laboratorians are often only seen as working in their labs. Laboratorians need to be part of field investigation teams to bring their knowledge to bear when looking for places to collect samples and to ensure that samples are properly collected and submitted.
In a somewhat ironic development, newly available rapid test methods for foodborne pathogens being used in the clinical setting have meant that fewer bacterial cultures are being forwarded to public health laboratories for further characterization, such as serotyping and PFGE testing.
These further tests are what enable public health laboratorians and epidemiologists to identify possible disease clusters and link otherwise sporadic cases to ongoing outbreaks. If public health agencies can’t identify outbreaks, then they won’t be investigated, additional exposures will not be prevented and food safety in general will suffer.
Environmental Health / Food Regulatory Challenges
This part of the foodborne disease outbreak system is all about what are we going to do about the outbreak / contamination? A bad thing has happened; food may have made people sick. Who did this and what are we going to do about it? Are our objectives, to prevent more illnesses or to take some kind of regulatory or punitive action against the wrong doer? Can we have it both ways?
The historical approach to environmental health/food regulatory investigations in response to food outbreaks has been to conduct regulatory inspections at locations implicated: food service, retail, manufacturing and production and to take regulatory action of some sort to “remedy” the problem and punish a responsible party.
Regulatory actions might include food seizures, citations for violations of regulations, recalls of food, public alerts and even closure of a firm. Investigators are expected to get all of this done quickly and because they are regulators to do so following the appropriate procedures and legal restrictions on how they conduct their activities.
Firm operators are expected to cooperate with the regulatory investigations in the face of allegations that they have made customers ill, that they likely will face bad publicity, loss of money, possible government and or private legal action and loss of reputation.
Some operators are public-health minded enough to cooperate in this setting. Others do not.
What kind of outcome do we expect to reach given this approach to these investigations? Do such investigations prevent future outbreaks/food contamination at the immediate source of contamination or in the wider industry? Does a successful regulatory or civil legal action or even the threat of one result in safer food in the future? Are investigations that are directed toward possible legal actions even collecting all of the information needed to inform future preventive activities?
Many government environmental health/food regulatory agencies are beginning to conduct environmental assessments/root cause analyses, a systems analysis approach, in response to foodborne disease outbreaks and other food contamination events rather than or in addition to regulatory inspections.
These investigations are intended to identify the contributing factors, what went wrong like inadequate cooking or cross contamination, that lead to the outbreak and the environmental antecedents (root causes) that lead to the contributing factors happening. Environmental antecedents are findings such as inadequate equipment, inadequate employee training and supervision, lack of a food safety culture, lack of a HACCP system.
Environmental assessments mean a very different kind of investigation needs to be conducted and a very different relationship needs to exist between an operator and investigator. Some of the most important findings may not even constitute regulatory violations. These findings often necessitate working out of the bounds of a historical regulatory inspection.
In an environmental assessment investigators are not there to find violations of regulations, they are looking at what happened, regardless of the regulation. Ideally regulatory violations are not even cited. To be fully successful an environmental assessment needs to be a cooperative investigation between an operator and an investigator with full transparency from both parties. They are trying to find out what went wrong in the system, not what legal action will result.
A regulatory investigation understandably can be a cat and mouse game, as an operator is in damage-control mode. In such a setting, it is much less likely that the contributing factors and environmental antecedents will be found. Many operators do not see it to be in their best interest to help to identify conditions that could expose them to greater jeopardy and liability.
The Food Safety Modernization Act directs FDA to put more emphasis on implementation of preventive controls, which are developed from an understanding of conditions and practices that can lead to contamination and subsequent foodborne illness. Regulatory inspections are much less likely to provide information to inform preventive controls than are environmental assessments.
The question facing us all is what do we want out of investigations of foodborne disease outbreaks and what are we willing to give up to get us there? An emphasis on the legal aspects of an outbreak may not lead to a true systems analysis of what went wrong.
Historical investigations limit themselves to violations at one or more settings, not to root causes for the outbreak. They also do not look at the wider food safety system in industry and government and how all of those aspects need to improve if future outbreaks are to be prevented. Implementation of environmental assessment will be a significant first step in improving our overall food safety system and food safety culture.
Federal agencies depend on timely and complete state and local epidemiology, laboratory and environmental data to inform their investigations going forward. Incomplete, inaccurate, and untimely information has slowed federal investigations and yet the state and local agencies federal agencies depend on often have inadequate levels of staff. Some of those staff have received little or inadequate training and have little experience in conducting foodborne disease outbreak investigations.
They also face many competing priorities in their respective agencies. Communications issues and lack of clarity over roles and responsibilities plague many investigations. The same challenges for federal agencies also impact those local surveillance and response systems and the state/local outbreaks that they investigate.
One problem that every environmental investigation faces is the time that has passed between the contamination of the food and the beginning of the investigation into how that contamination occurred. At best it can be a few days, but in some occasions months have passed before the investigation gets to this location. By this time left over foods and ingredients may all be gone. Key employees may be gone.
In outbreaks involving fresh produce, the field where the produce was grown may be plowed and fallow, or another crop may be growing there. Foodborne outbreak investigations can not be considered successful if investigators have not been able to identify the contributing factors that caused the outbreak and the environmental antecedents that lead to the contributing factors.
Very few outbreak investigations that identify a vehicle also report contributing factors and even fewer report environmental antecedents. This lack of information seriously limits everyone’s ability to identify future preventive controls.
Put another way, we fail to learn from others mistakes.
What Is Being Done and What Works?
Government agencies at all levels recognize these problems and are working to address them. Agencies are accomplishing this through development of new and enhancing existing partnerships, providing training including cross training with partners, setting and implementing program standards, piloting new approaches and developing protocols to improve the system from surveillance through response.
Partnerships are being developed among government agencies, with universities and with industry organizations. One example of the partnerships is the Council to Improve Foodborne Outbreak Response (CIFOR). This organization of representatives of government agencies and disciplines at the local, state and federal level has produced the “CIFOR Guidelines to Improve Foodborne Outbreak Response” and the CIFOR Guidelines “Toolkit.” These two documents are being used by government agencies to develop more effective and efficient systems.
FDA has created its new foodborne disease response team CORE (Coordinated Outbreak Response and Evaluation) to help improve internal management of foodborne outbreak surveillance and response, as well as improve coordination with other government agencies.
FDA is also funding several Rapid Response Teams made up of members from state food safety regulatory agencies, public health agencies and the associated laboratories, along with area FDA District Office members.
In cooperation with state and local agencies, FDA has also developed retail food and manufactured food model regulatory program standards, and works with state and local food safety regulatory agencies to assist them in implementing these standards. Standard number five for both of these sets of standards sets out recommended practices for foodborne disease surveillance and response programs.
CDC has been promoting and funding improved public health laboratory and epidemiology capacity in state and local public health agencies for decades. One of the newest efforts has been the funding of several pilot outbreak surveillance teams known as FoodCORE sites.These public health agencies are working to improve laboratory and epidemiology surveillance for foodborne diseases as well as improved collaboration with environmental health/food regulatory partners.
CDC has funded the Environmental Health Specialist – Network, also know as EHS – Net, for more than 10 years. EHS – Net has funded state agencies to study the causes of foodborne illness linked to retail food establishments and to develop improved procedures for conducing environmental assessments at locations linked to outbreaks.
The Department of Homeland Security has funded the updating of the “Food Emergency Response Plan” (FERP). This model emergency response plan is focused on intentional contamination of the food supply, but since many of the same players are also involved in unintentional contamination the document can be useful for agencies preparing for those events as well.
The Public Health Accreditation Board has developed a set of standards that state, local and tribal public health departments need to meet of they wish to be accredited. Those standards include many provisions that directly or indirectly impact the effectiveness of foodborne disease surveillance, detection, response and prevention.
The Food safety Modernization Act contains a number of provisions that direct FDA and CDC to improve foodborne disease surveillance and response. Both agencies are to improve capacity at state and local agencies and CDC is required to establish Centers of Excellence.
Conclusions
There are no quick fixes that will make dramatic improvements in the U.S. foodborne disease surveillance and response system. The system is just too complex, government funding is too tight and the challenges are too numerous for quick fixes.
Looking for someone to blame will not make things better any sooner either. Government agencies recognize they need to do better. They will need to clarify roles and responsibilities, improve communications and coordination, share findings more freely and increase capacity.
There are many ongoing efforts working towards these improvements, but we will continue to be frustrated by the consequences of the many challenges we face.
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John J. Guzewich (Jack) retired from the FDA Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition in August of 2011. He was Senior Advisor for Environmental Health in the Office of Food Defense, Communication and Emergency Response.
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