White House Unveils New Food Safety Website at www.foodsafety.gov

This week, HHS (Washington, DC) secretary Kathleen Sebelius and USDA (Washington, DC) secretary Tom Vilsack, announced the launch of a new government website at www.foodsafety.gov, according to the news agency Reuters.

This website is a development of the White House...s Food Safety Working Group, which Sebelius and Vilsack are co-chairs of. The site will provide consumers and businesses with up-to-date information regarding food product recalls with the ability to receive information through email and phone alerts.

The site will also provide advice on how to safely handle foods, and contact information for reporting adverse events related to food. Contact information for reporting food poisoning incidents and other adverse events will be categorized by food types for consumer ease.

'Those reports of illness can help us identify potential outbreaks sooner and strengthen our efforts to protect Americans from unsafe food and food-borne illness,' said Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC; Atlanta), in an interview with Reuters.

The site...s overall intention is to provide consumers with a gateway of food safety information from several leading health organizations, including FDA, CDC, and USDA.