Are Food Plant Audits Overrated?

摘要

The U.S. has recently experienced a very large outbreak of salmonellosis resulting from a small company that clearly was not in compliance with the food safety practices needed to prevent product contamination with food-borne pathogens. Much has beenmade in media reports that the facility received "superior" ratings on an audit in March 2008, yet egregious violations were found when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) conducted an investigation at the plant as a result of the outbreak beingattributed to this facility The New York Times (Michael Moss and Andrew Martin, March 6, 2009) has questioned the value of audits, stating "...in case after case, the audits have failed to prevent major outbreaks." What is the value of audits and why did this one apparently fail?