1. Be polite. Your messages should not be abusive to others.
2. Use appropriate language. Do not swear, use vulgarities or any other inappropriate language.
3. All communications and information should be assumed to be private property.
4. Never give your userID or password to another person. System administrators that need to access your account for maintenance or to correct problems will have full priviledges to your account.
5. Never assume your email messages are private or that they can be read by only yourself or the recipient. Never send something that you would mind seeing on the evening news.

As the progressing sciences associated with food safety develop new or additional information that may impact food safety, the questions and answers at www.FoodSafetyAnswers.org will be revised accordingly. If you ask a question of the experts, you are encouraged to visit the site periodically to obtain any possible updates.

We provide educational information only, and we are not responsible for any consequences that may result from the choices you make based upon the information provided. We reserve the right to choose which questions to answer and which ones to include in our public database.

Some of the information provided may be specific to your area. Please consult your state’s local health deparment for more specific local information. The information provided is not designed as a substitute for legal advice, nor is it intended to be a comprehensive statement of the law. If you need legal services, please consult an attorney.

Visitors older than 13 years of age
Policy: User information will be kept confidential and used only for appropriate reporting purposes.

1. This World Wide Web (WWW) site is provided as a public service by Iowa State University (ISU) and its partners.
2. Information presented on this WWW site is considered public information and may be distributed or copied. ISU retains a nonexclusive, royalty-free license to publish or reproduce these documents, or allow others to do so, for University purposes. These documents may be freely distributed and used for non-commercial, scientific and educational purposes. Commercial use of the documents available from this server may be protected under the U.S. and Foreign Copyright Laws. Individual documents on this server may have different copyright conditions, and that will be noted in those documents.
3. When visitors come to this web site to browse, they do so anonymously. ISU does not collect identifying information about them. We collect only summary information (see below) about the numbers of individuals who visit our web site and at what those individuals look. This computer system uses industry-standard software to create summary statistics, which are used for such things as assessing what information is of most and least interest, determining technical design specifications, and identifying system performance or problem areas.
4. Where identifying information is asked of visitors (to respond to an information request, etc.) that information is used only for responding to their comments or questions and is not made available for other purposes. It is not required for submission of comments or that they provide any personally identifying information, such as their name or e-mail address. However, that information would be necessary for us to send them a response to their comments or a question.
5. We collect personally identifiable information (name and e-mail address) only if specifically and knowingly provided by the visitors. Personally identifying information which visitors provide will only be used in connection with responding to their comment or inquiry. Information is collected for statistical purposes. The purpose of this use is to measure customer interest in various areas of the site. This information is not expressed in any form which would reveal personally identifying information. No personal information collected is sold or otherwise transferred to a third party.
6. For site security purposes and to ensure that this service remains available to all users, this computer system employs industry-standard methods to monitor network traffic to identify unauthorized attempts to upload or change information, or otherwise cause damage.
7. No other attempts are made to identify individual users or their usage habits. Raw data logs are used for no other purposes and are scheduled for regular destruction in accordance with National Archives and Records Administration guidelines.
8. Unauthorized attempts to upload information or change information on this service are strictly prohibited and may be punishable under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986.
9. If visitors have any questions or comments about the information presented here, they should forward them to us through our comments page.

Visitors 13 years of age and younger
Policy: User information for children under the age of 13 years of age will kept confidential and in compliance with current federal and local regulations.

1. If visitors are under 13 years of age, they should not provide any personally identifiable information on this site without the knowledge and permission of a parent or guardian. If we learn that they are under 13 years of age, we will not maintain or use any personally identifiable information about them without the verifiable consent of your parent or guardian, except as allowed by law. This may mean that they will be unable to participate in some activities on the site without that verifiable consent.
2. We collect personally identifiable information directly from visitors on this site that may be under the age of 13. We do not collect this information without the knowledge of the visitor.
3. Our activities on this site are carried out in compliance with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA). Under COPPA, we may not ask a child to provide more personal information than is reasonably necessary in order to participate in an activity on this site. We comply with this requirement, and any personally identifiable information collected from a visitor on this site is used only for the purpose of enabling the visitor’s participation in activities on this site. For example, we ask visitors who wish to be placed on a specific mailing list to receive site updates or information changes to provide an e-mail address. This information is used to send the visitor the requested information.
4. We ask each visitor who wishes to participate in this site to provide an e-mail address along with the visitor’s screen name. All e-mail addresses are used only to protect the security and integrity of the site, such as to take action against visitors who post inappropriate material or harass other visitors.
5. In some circumstances, we also ask visitors of this site to provide us with contact information on their parent or guardian. We use this information only for the purpose of contacting the parent or guardian to notify them of our information practices with respect to children, to notify that person of a child’s participation on this site, and/or to seek the consent of the parent or guardian to such participation.
6. The parent or guardian of any person under the age of 13 whose personal information we have collected on this site may ask to review that personal information, to have it deleted, and to forbid further collection of the information. For more information on how to do this, the parent or guardian will be asked to contact the contact person listed below.
7. No personal information collected on this site is shared with third parties other than a parent or guardian of a site visitor, except that information may be shared with those with whom we contract to carry out the internal operations of the site (for example, to send a promotional item visitors have requested on the site.). These contractors have agreed with to use personal information of site visitors only for the purposes of carrying out these operations. In particular, we do not rent or sell mailing lists of site visitors to any third party.
8. The operator of this site is the Iowa State University, 1055 LeBaron Ames, Iowa, 50011-1120. If visitors have questions concerning this policy, or if they are a parent or guardian who wishes to review the information we have collected on a child, they should contact:

Tamara Kuhn, APR
Extension Specialist
Iowa State University Extension
31 MacKay Hall
Ames, Iowa, 50011-1121
(515) 294-7549
tkuhn@iastate.edu

Pages on this site have been verified to meet the afore mentioned standards using Watchfire’s Bobby Accessibility program. For more information on this program, click on one of the icons below.

Contacting the Web Site
This site is maintained by the Iowa State University Extension Hotel, Restaurant, and Institution Management program (ISUE HRIM). If you have any questions about this privacy statement or believe that our organization has acted in a manner inconsistent with this privacy statement, you may contact:

Jason Ellis (jdellis@iastate.edu)

We appreciate your questions and comments. Thank you for visiting our Web site.

Pages on this site have been verified to meet the afore mentioned standards using Watchfire’s Bobby Accessibility program. For more information on this program, click on one of the icons below.

Answers to questions asked of the experts are reviewed by three food safety experts before being sent to the question asker. This validation process will return answers to the person asking the question within five working days. If an answer is needed sooner, site visitors are encouraged to review the previously answered questions already on www.FoodSafetyAnswers.org.

• USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service
• USDA/FDA Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition
• Food and Drug Administration and Foodsafety.gov
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
• Environmental Protection Agency
• Iowa State University Extension – Food Safety Project

• Albertson’s
• CNS/RQA/CA, Inc.
• Ecolab Inc.
• Food Irradiation Processing Alliance
• Food Marketing Institute
• Food Safety Connection
• USDA FOODSAFE discussion group
• Institute of Food Technologists
• International Food Information Council
• Kansas State University Extension
• Michigan State University
• Mississippi State University
• National Consumers League
• National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation
• North Carolina State University Extension
• North Dakota State University Extension
• State of Hawaii
• State of Pennsyvania
• Virtual Reference Desk Project – Syracuse University
• University of Missouri-Columbia Extension
• University of Maryland
• Utah State University Extension
• Washington State University

Experts include, but are not limited to, the following:

University researchers – includes faculty, extension staff or other personnel working in an area associated with food safety.
Graduate students – students who are working in and/or have experience with an area associated with food safety.
Industry representatives – people working for companies associated with food manufacturing and processing, food service or other areas of the food industry that impact food safety.
Government officials – includes federal and state employees with a working knowledge of maintaining and improving consumer food supplies.
To be eligible for serving as a food safety expert, a candidate must meet at least two of the following conditions:

bachelor’s, master’s, or PhD from an accredited college or university.
membership in a food safety or food-related association such as the:
International Association of Food Protection
Institute of Food Technologists
National Environmental Health Association
American Dietetic Association
employed by an appropriate U.S. federal agency, such as the Department of Agriculture or Health and Human Services.
To find out more about contributing to our project, visit the Expert section of this site.

1. Create and maintain a current, refereed body of answers to commonly asked food safety questions.
2. Recruit and retain qualified experts based on areas of expertise in food safety for answering questions.
3. Link consumers directly with food safety experts via a web site.

This research project is funded by the USDA Cooperative States Research, Education, and Extension Service, Project No. 2001-51110-11358.