Our Beginnings: In 1992, most of us had no idea what E. coli was, let alone the kind of havoc it was capable of unleashing.
Unfortunately, in 1993 we learned all too well. Out of the collective grief and anger of individuals, whose children and families were unmercifully caught in what would come to be known as the West Coast E. coli Outbreak, Stop Foodborne Illness formed under the name Safe Tables Our Priority (STOP).
Heartbroken mothers, fathers, siblings, children, and others were propelled by love, confusion, and anger — they knew they had to raise a voice that America would hear.
Today, Stop Foodborne Illness is the voice for all who want to turn awareness into action. We advocate to regulate food handling and processing from farm to table. We partner with Congress, the USDA, the FDA, the CDC, and other relevant agencies and organizations to mitigate food safety risks through policy and legislation.
We offer peer-to-peer mentoring for survivors and families of victims across the country. We empower others to become food safety advocates themselves by providing opportunities to share their stories
Since Stop Foodborne Illness was founded, we have been instrumental in passing food safety laws including the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA).
As the voice of people affected by foodborne illness, we collaborate with partners in academia, the food industry, and government to prevent foodborne illness. We advocate for effective food safety policy and facilitate culture change to increase food safety.
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Live from the 2022 Food Safety Summit
Mitzi and Vanessa are at 1:05
Interview starts around 30 minutes.
Morning Show March 3, 2022 Dr. Vanessa Coffman, the director of the Alliance to Stop Foodborne Illness, joined the Morning Show crew to continue the morning health discussion.
Stop Foodborne Illness is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. Donations are tax-deductible to the extent the law allows.
As Chief Executive Officer, Sandra Eskin is focused on expanding the impact of Stop Foodborne Illness (STOP) by concentrating on STOP’s three strategic areas: families and individuals impacted by foodborne disease; company culture and practice; and food safety policy. By instituting a collaborative, consumer-centric operating model, STOP engages stakeholders across the food system to develop and advance solutions to food safety.
In March 2021, Mrs. Eskin was appointed Deputy Under Secretary for Food Safety. In this role, she led 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.
With a diverse background in food safety and sustainability, Dr. Vanessa Coffman brings a strong focus on environmental exposures across the food system.
She received her PhD in Environmental Epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a MS from The University of California, Berkeley in Global Public Health and the Environment.
Vanessa has previously worked at STOP as a policy analyst. Since then, she has conducted research for the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization in Sierra Leone (West Africa) examining opportunities and roadblocks to farming in a post-war setting. Additionally, she has done extensive research on occupational and residential exposures from large pork production operations in rural North Carolina, and conducted research based in Denmark examining the association between nitrate in drinking water (largely from food animal operations) and fetal health outcomes.
Dr. Coffman has testified in front of U.S. government officials and has co-authored peer-reviewed papers and helped draft federal regulations.
In her spare time, Vanessa fosters dogs and enjoys travelling with her husband, and trying new foods. And, on slow days, bothering Stanley.
