Joelle Mosso

Fresh Produce Food Safety Professional | Food Microbiology Risk Expert| AI & Predictive Food Safety Data

Former USDA NACMCF & USDA NOSB member

[Joelle Mosso @JoelleMosso]

I’m a produce food safety professional focused on microbiology, public health, risk reduction, and the systems that keep food safe.

My goal is simple: help make complex food safety issues clearer, more useful, and more actionable.

If that’s your world too, follow along.

[Joelle Mosso @JoelleMosso]

@ABC Focus less on naming bodies of water.

Focus more on ensuring the food supply and public health is a priority to our citizens.

The name of "Lake Ontario" hasn't ever made someone sick...but a number of food items lately have.

[Joelle Mosso @JoelleMosso]

Access to safe and nutritious food is critical to long term health.

We also must improve our prevention-based food safety to ensure that servings that reach our children are also safe from microbial risks too.

It's far past time to improve our food safety programs - especially when serving one of our most vulnerable consumers.

[Joelle Mosso @JoelleMosso]

Happy to see we are promoting fresh fruits and vegetables in our kids' diets. It's one of my life's missions...

However, we also need to pair that with food safety education and programs to ensure the safety of these items.

It's critical that we protect our children & broader population from potential acute and chronic food safety risks. Let's maximize nutrition and health all around!

[Joelle Mosso @JoelleMosso]

@HHSResponse @SecKennedy @SecRollins @IngrahamAngle @HHSGov @USDA With REAL foods, can we bring back REAL food safety experts & robust food safety systems?

Asking for a friend....

[Joelle Mosso @JoelleMosso]

That argument could be made about a bunch of foods & drinks -

Can food safety improve across the board, including with lettuce? Of course, and we need to keep working on that.

However, proposing elimination of a whole food item as a solution for risk management?

That line of reasoning effectively is along the lines of proposing a solution to food safety it not to eat at all. As one might imagine, that leads to very different risks.

[Joelle Mosso @JoelleMosso]

We need a comprehensive and holistic program - in food safety, hope is not a strategy.

All for promoting fresh fruits and vegetables in school lunches -- it's a critical piece to building a successful and healthy future for our children.

We also need to ensure it is safe. Promoting these foods without the prevention-based food safety structure is not prudent.

[Joelle Mosso @JoelleMosso]

It' time to rethink the food safety approach -Practical vs. Prudent in Food Safety: A Nuance that Matters.

When new food safety learnings and/or technologies are developed, we must evaluate that new understanding against how the pre-existing system performs....

When determining if the adoption of new measures or techniques is needed is to replace the term practical with the term prudent. While this may seem like a slight semantic difference, there is a key distinction between the two terms. Prudent, as opposed to practical, incorporates whether something is feasible and whether the adoption should be taken to lessen future risk.

https://t.co/l6HvcNhMuA

[Joelle Mosso @JoelleMosso]

This summer's busy outbreak dashboard has been a problem not just in the illnesses (which is obvious) but also in that it has created a very strong message to consumers that “food is suddenly unsafe.”

That is a crisis with another origin and need for a solution.

The harder question we now face and need to answer is - are we turning what we find into prevention fast enough to keep the same risks from repeating?

Prevention has been a strategy often mentioned, but not designed. It's past time we build the system with the outcome we seek.

[Joelle Mosso @JoelleMosso]

Deciphering STEC positives in Molecular Screening Methods for Produce Testing

Shiga-toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) is a group of pathogenic E.coli that has been found to contaminate leafy greens and other fresh produce items (right now alfalfa sprouts & blueberries). These contamination events contribute to the overall burden of foodborne illnesses and represent a primary challenge in the goal to improve produce food safety.

STEC is a broad and diverse category of E.coli, with an estimated number of over 400+ serotypes considered within the STEC group.

What’s the definition of STEC positive? As with all complicated answers, it begins with “it depends”.

https://t.co/JeUONVPNrS

[Joelle Mosso @JoelleMosso]

I’m a huge supporter of local agriculture—but ‘local’ is not a complete evaluation of safety, and it isn’t necessarily a microbial control.

Risk doesn't care where it comes from -- it comes down to how a grower deals with water, worker hygiene, animals, harvest practices and handling. Some local options may be safest, some may not be.

Food safety comes from how food is produced, not the number of miles on the truck. It's a nuance that matters.

https://t.co/LapjItKUX1

[Western Growers @WesternGrowers]

California's Salinas Valley, known as “Steinbeck Country,” after famed author John Steinbeck, who grew up and drew inspiration from the region, has become one of the world’s most important centers for fresh vegetable production—growing an incredible diversity of crops for families across the country.

As Western Growers celebrates its 100th anniversary, we're looking back at the places that have helped shape American agriculture. 🥬🥕🌎

[Joelle Mosso @JoelleMosso]

Monitoring recreational water is critical to help ensure that the general public don't expose themselves to risks that may make them sick.

This is a great parallel with what we could and should do to monitor agricultural water (surface and aquifers) in key agricultural areas.

With better data, we will have better information to prevent risks from reaching consumers.

[CDC @CDCgov]

It’s not always obvious when water is unsafe. Check online or near the water for warnings from local officials. Follow the advice to avoid germs, unsafe conditions, or other hazards in the water.
More tips for staying healthy at lakes and beaches: https://t.co/3H5KxXoY5i

[Joelle Mosso @JoelleMosso]

Might want to revisit why FDA PSR rule only requires sprouts to be testing for E.coli O157 and Salmonella.

These 3 serotypes of E.coli could have been detected if they were included in the testing requirement.

I am hope we will learn more about how all this happened, but longer term, it would be helpful for FDA to update the rule/guidance to look beyond 1 strain of 400-500 Shiga Toxin producing E.coli that cause illness.

https://t.co/uWAKcFg8ai

[Joelle Mosso @JoelleMosso]

The Nobel Prize Award: John F. Enders shared the 1954 Nobel Prize with Thomas H. Weller and Frederick C. Robbins for discovering how to grow poliovirus in tissue cultures.

Enders used the exact same tissue-culture method to isolate the live measles virus from a sick schoolboy named David Edmonston in 1954.

Development of the Vaccine: Enders and his colleague Dr. Thomas Peebles successfully isolated the measles virus in 1954.Release:

The first licensed live-attenuated measles vaccine (derived from the Edmonston-B strain) was released to the public in 1963.

Impact: The vaccine rapidly reduced millions of annual U.S. infections and deaths down to near-zero levels prior to the modern resurgence.

[Joelle Mosso @JoelleMosso]

I have been thinking of that a lot lately.

While my focus is on food safety, the same thought process applies. In the US, we have been fortunate with a very safe and robust food supply - so much so that we have taken for granted all the resources needed to keep it that way.

Food safety and public health is easy to cut when you don't see evidence (illness, outbreaks, etc.) of why you need it. Quickly, after it's gone, you realize how critically the system depended on it. Especially since the general consumers have come to expect that all foods are equally safe - they're not.

[Joelle Mosso @JoelleMosso]

First, this is horrific and horrible for the communities in this fire.

Second, is that these wildfires are becoming far too common to consider them freak events. Call it climate change, call it weather catastrophes...call it whatever you want.

These are now events that should be predicted for and go beyond risks to housing. Food safety is rapidly changing in these climates as well, and a lingering risk far after these horrific climate events.

[Joelle Mosso @JoelleMosso]

Food safety has always been considered incorrectly as a cost center -- frequently the focus of cost reductions and "nice to haves" but not necessary needs.

We need to demand at the federal and state levels not just the appropriate funding and resources (we DON'T have them now for certain) & require that those systems shift to become prevention-based.

Food safety and security are paramount in our society and we cannot afford to ignore it any longer.

[PBS News @NewsHour]

Extreme weather conditions can have major impacts on farmers and their crops at a time when they’re already facing high production costs. https://t.co/gCdlWwTtul

[Joelle Mosso @JoelleMosso]

A jalapeño can become salsa, guacamole, dressing, prepared meals—and dozens of SKUs.

That’s why traceback is only half the job. Once a source is identified, public health also depends on knowing where every affected lot went—and fast.

The ongoing Salmonella Javiana outbreak linked to jalapeños has reached 431 illnesses in 32 states, and FDA is tracking multiple downstream recalls involving products made with the implicated peppers.

We need to demand more of our supply chain and shift from reaction to prediction.