Open Records Victory in Kentucky

The Kentucky Open Government Blog reports on the victory of Kentucky New Era reporter Sarah Hogsed who had filed a records request for restaurant inspection reports with the Pennyrile District Health Department.

Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway said the health department subverted the intent of the Open Records Act and took the opportunity to clarify Kentucky law on open records, as reported by the blog:

The opinion said the district's excuse for the delay – absence of staff – was not sufficient. The opinion added “in the interest of absolute clarity,” that those who ask for public records cannot be required to submit their requests on preprinted forms, or sign forms in the presence of an agency employee; that receipt of records no longer requires on-site inspection; that agencies may recover only their actual costs of reproducing public records, not including staff time, if the records are to be used for a noncommercial purpose, including use by a newspaper or periodical. The department had indicated that it considered the paper a commercial interest. "We suppose the notion that the news media act in the public interest had escaped the health department," the opinion said.

Nestle denied FDA access to certain records

FDA investigators were denied access to Nestle complaint logs, pest-control records and other records from 2004-2007, the AP reported. An FDA spokeswoman said companies are allow to decide what they will permit during an inspection.

Inspection reports from a Nestlé USA cookie dough factory released yesterday show the company declined several times in the past five years to provide Food and Drug Administration inspectors with complaint logs, pest-control records and other information.

The records, which date to 2004, were made public after Nestlé's Toll House refrigerated, prepackaged cookie dough was discovered to be the likely culprit in an E. coli outbreak that has sickened 69 people in 29 states, according to the latest estimates from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC and the FDA are investigating the outbreak.

According to the reports released by the FDA, the company declined to allow agency investigators access to certain documents in at least 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007.

More here.

FOI at Work: School cafeterias not meeting inspection requirements

School cafeterias are required to obtain two annual inspections or risk losing funding from the National School Lunch Program. But only 12 states are reporting 90 percent or more of their schools in compliance, according to the Agriculture Department.

Nearly two-thirds of schools in New York state are not receiving the twice-yearly health inspections required by federal law to curb food poisoning, making the state among the nation's worst offenders.

Compliance is even lower in Monroe County, where almost eight in 10 schools were not inspected twice in the 2006-07 school year, the most recent on record at the state Education Department. One in four were not inspected at all.

Meanwhile, inspection reports reviewed by the Democrat and Chronicle showed that one in five public school cafeterias in Monroe County failed to meet health standards in the last two years.

More here.