1 week Ago By Bill Marler
Tough to fill the shoes of Mitzi Baum but the STOP Board did just that. Sandra Eskin was appointed Deputy Under Secretary for Food Safety on March 24, 2021. In this role, Mrs.
Eskin lead the Office of Food Safety at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, overseeing the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), which has regulatory oversight for ensuring that meat, poultry and egg products are safe, wholesome and accurately labeled.
Prior to joining USDA, Mrs. Eskin was the Project Director for Food Safety at The Pew Charitable Trusts in Washington, D.C.
, a position she held since November 2009. She also served as the Deputy Director of the Produce Safety Project (PSP), a Pew-funded initiative at Georgetown University from 2008-2009. While at PSP, she was a senior scholar with the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University.
Mrs. Eskin spent nearly 20 years as a public-policy consultant to numerous consumer advocacy and public-interest organizations, providing strategic and policy advice on a broad range of consumer-protection issues, in particular food and drug safety, labeling, and advertising. She has served as a member of multiple federal advisory committees related to consumer information on prescription drugs, meat and poultry safety, and foodborne illness surveillance.
During her career, she has written numerous reports and articles on food-safety topics. Mrs. Eskin received her J.
D. from UC Hastings College of the Law, and her B.A.
from Brown University. She frequently comments on food safety issues. Food Safety News has collected several examples of her written opinions that were offered during the past year, including: When Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack brought her into his administration, he expressed his support, saying “Sandra’s deep experience in food safety will strengthen USDA’s dedication to ensuring a safe, secure food supply for consumers and help to protect the safety of federal meat inspectors and workers throughout the food chain.
” I could not have said it better..
