Quality
Report: Tracking System Needed To Fight Fake Drugs
February 13, 2013 10:55 am | by Lauran Neergaard, AP Medical Writer | News | CommentsThe call for a national drug tracking system comes a week after the Food and Drug Administration warned doctors, for the third time in about a year, that it discovered a counterfeit batch of the cancer drug Avastin that lacked the real tumor-killing ingredient.
France: Complex Trading Web In Horsemeat Scandal
February 11, 2013 8:32 am | by Lori Hinnant, Associated Press | News | CommentsA maze of trading between meat wholesalers has made it increasingly difficult to trace the origins of food — enabling horsemeat disguised as beef to be sold in frozen meals across Europe. France's agricultural minister said Monday that regulators must find a way "out of the fog."
Poland: Still No Sign Country Source Of Horsemeat
February 7, 2013 7:58 am | News | CommentsJaroslaw Naze, deputy head of Poland's General Veterinary Inspectorate, said Ireland needed to hand over more documentary evidence, including of labels on the suspected meat supplies, so that Polish officials can complete their own investigation. "I need the details from Ireland," he said.
Customs: Fake Super Bowl Jerseys Seized In Ohio
February 6, 2013 8:38 am | News | CommentsFederal customs officials say bogus Super Bowl jerseys are among $3.4 million in counterfeit goods that have been seized from shipping hubs at two Ohio airports. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials said Tuesday the jerseys and other items were seized over the past nine days at the DHL hub at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport and the UPS hub at Louisville International Airport.
'Horseburger' Firm Blames 170 Tons Of Polish Meat
February 6, 2013 8:28 am | by Shawn Pogatchnik, Associated Press | News | CommentsThe Irish meat company at the center of Europe's "horseburger" scandal on Tuesday blamed the contamination of its hamburger patties on the purchase last year of 170 tons of meat imported from Poland. Poland says its own investigations of slaughterhouses identified by Ireland as suppliers to ABP have produced no evidence they have shipped horsemeat.
New EPA Rules On Cadmium Exposure Raise Liability Risk
February 5, 2013 12:44 pm | by Michael Gruver, Lawyer, Kaye Scholer and Glenn Pogust, Partner, Kaye Scholer | Articles | CommentsRecently, the health risks associated with cadmium exposure has led to increased public attention. For example, in 2010, Wal-Mart and other retailers recalled toy jewelry found to contain high levels of the substance, while that same year McDonalds recalled 12 million collectable drinking glasses after cadmium-containing paint was discovered in the glassware.
PM: Horsemeat Scandal Hurting Ireland's Reputation
February 5, 2013 7:31 am | by Shawn Pogatchnik, Associated Press | News | CommentsYet even as Prime Minister Enda Kenny said the problem had been linked to imported offcuts of Polish meat, experts said horse could have been added to burger-bound beef later in the supply chain, — and noted past examples of food-labeling fraud in Ireland's meat industry.
Poland: No Proof Yet Horsemeat Came From Country
January 31, 2013 1:31 pm | by Vanessa Gera, Associated Press | News | CommentsSo far, Polish investigators haven't found any evidence to link the country to the horsemeat detected in burgers produced by Ireland's Silvercrest processing plant, said Jaroslaw Naze, the deputy head of Poland's General Veterinary Inspectorate.
ANA To Seek Damages From Boeing For 787 Woes
January 31, 2013 5:10 am | by Yuri Kageyama, AP Business Writer | News | CommentsJapan's All Nippon Airways is prepared to recoup from Boeing whatever damages it suffers from flight cancellations and other costs caused by the worldwide grounding of 787 jets, a senior executive said Thursday. All 50 Boeing 787s in use around the world were grounded earlier this month after a lithium-ion battery in a 787 operated by ANA overheated.
Suppliers, Grocers Turning To DNA Testing On Meat
January 30, 2013 1:51 pm | by Shawn Pogatchnik, Associated Press | News | CommentsUntil now, supermarkets and food processors have not used DNA testing to determine whether food products marked as chicken, pork, beef, lamb or fish contain bits of other animals. Experts say that's because such findings don't affect food safety, only the integrity of labeling.
Gatorade To Remove Controversial Ingredient
January 25, 2013 1:55 pm | by Candice Choi, AP Food Industry Writer | News | CommentsPepsiCo Inc. is removing a controversial ingredient from its Gatorade sports drink in response to customer complaints.A spokeswoman for the company, Molly Carter, said Friday that the move was in the works for the past year after the company began "hearing rumblings" from consumers about the ingredient.
Burger King Drops Supplier Linked To Horsemeat
January 24, 2013 9:02 am | News | CommentsBurger King says it has stopped buying beef from an Irish supplier after traces of horse DNA were found in beef burgers sold in Britain and Ireland. The fast food chain said in a statement that it had dropped Silvercrest Foods as a supplier for its U.K. and Ireland restaurants as a "voluntary and precautionary measure."
Q&A: Navigating A Regulatory Minefield For Medical Devices
January 18, 2013 11:20 am | by Joel Hans, Managing Editor, Manufacturing.net | Articles | CommentsMedical device manufacturing is subject to a complex network of regulations from a handful of different governing bodies such as the FDA and OSHA. If you’re planning to market and sell a new product, you have to coordinate with the equivalent bodies in every country.
Ireland Recalls 10M Burgers Over Horsemeat Fears
January 16, 2013 2:33 pm | by Shawn Pogatchnik, Associated Press | News | CommentsAn Irish meat processor recalled 10 million burgers Wednesday from supermarkets across Ireland and Britain amid fears that many could contain horsemeat, a discovery that poses no danger to public health but threatens to undermine the beef business central to Ireland's rural economy.
Plant In Peanut Butter Recall Rehiring
January 11, 2013 11:14 am | News | CommentsThe country's largest organic peanut butter processor linked to a national salmonella outbreak has hired back some of its employees. KRQE-TV reports that Sunland Inc. in Portales hired back the employees after getting approval from the Food and Drug Administration to allow its processing plant to get back up and running.
Indian Court To Rule On Generic Drug Industry
January 4, 2013 2:41 am | by Nirmala George, Associated Press | News | CommentsFrom Africa's crowded AIDS clinics to the malarial jungles of Southeast Asia, the lives of millions of ill people in the developing world are hanging in the balance ahead of a legal ruling that will determine whether India's drug companies can continue to provide cheap versions of many life-saving medicines.
Audit ‘Utopia’
December 14, 2012 2:17 pm | by Patricia Hottel, Technical Director, McCloud Services | Articles | CommentsThird-party audits can provide great value in measuring the strengths and weaknesses of a facility’s food safety program. Friction can occur between third-party auditor groups and pest management professionals regarding what should be checked and the appropriate measurement levels for the pest management portions of food safety audits.
Ex-BPI Worker Sues Over 'Pink Slime'
December 12, 2012 10:53 pm | by Kristi Eaton, Associated Press | News | CommentsA former worker at a South Dakota beef processor is suing ABC News, celebrity chef Jamie Oliver and a food blogger, saying their use of the phrase "pink slime" to describe one of the company's products led to him losing his job. Bruce Smith, 58, is among about 750 people who were laid off at Beef Products Inc. in the wake of what the company called a misinformation campaign.
SPC Software: A Quality Manager’s Dream?
December 11, 2012 2:28 pm | by Joel Hans, Managing Editor, Manufacturing.net | Articles | CommentsThe Carlisle & Finch Co. has a long history of making the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard happy customers, but as quality tolerances tightened, the company decided that it would give up its old processes for quality mangagement and invest in a forward-thinking solution: statistical process control (SPC) software.
Booze, Smokes On Agenda For Quirky Gov't Group
December 8, 2012 10:29 am | by Daniel Wagner, AP Business Writer | News | CommentsIt is a half-ton hulk of a machine, all brushed aluminum and gasping smoke holes, like a retrofit of equipment used on an Industrial Revolution production line. It can smoke 20 cigarettes at once and conclude which are unsafe because they are counterfeit and which are unsafe merely because they are cigarettes.
Money Saving Ball Screw Repairs
December 6, 2012 10:09 pm | by Mike Fitzpatrick, General Manager, PSI Repair Services, Inc. | Articles | CommentsWhen it comes to high-precision positioning for rotary-to-linear motion, the ball screw provides unequaled reliability and performance. Ball screws fail for a variety of reasons, such as accidents resulting from electronic malfunctions, poor design (under capacity), too high preload, misalignment, environmental, operator error, poor maintenance, or normal wear and tear over time.
Survey: Quality Professionals’ Salaries Flat For First Time In 25 Years
December 4, 2012 10:04 am | News | CommentsThe average salaries for quality professionals remained steady in 2012, showing no significant change compared to 2011, perhaps in light of lingering effects of the recession, according to Quality Progress magazine’s 26th annual Salary Survey. This is the first year since the recession began in December 2007 — and ended in June 2009 — that quality professionals’ salaries didn’t increase in the United States.
Ranbaxy Halts Generic Lipitor Production
November 30, 2012 1:40 pm | by Linda A. Johnson, AP Business Writer | News | CommentsRanbaxy Pharmaceuticals Inc. has halted production of generic cholesterol drug Lipitor while it investigates how tiny glass particles got into dozens of batches of the drug that were recalled in November. The problem-plagued drugmaker has been operating under increased FDA scrutiny since last December because of quality lapses at multiple factories over several years.
Senate Questions Pharmacy Boards After Outbreak
November 19, 2012 5:36 pm | by Matthew Perrone, AP Health Writer | News | CommentsA Senate committee investigating the deadly outbreak of meningitis wants to know how regulators in all 50 states oversee specialty pharmacies like the one that triggered the illness. Contaminated injections from the New England Compounding Center have been blamed for an outbreak of fungal meningitis that has killed 34 people and sickened 490.
Gearing Up For Curiosity
November 15, 2012 9:40 am | by Joel Hans, Managing Editor, Manufacturing.net | Articles | CommentsForest City Gear (FCG), currently based in Roscoe, Illinois, was founded in 1955, but was recently tasked with one of its most important missions to date: building the gears for critical mechanical functions in the Mars Curiosity rover.
