Richard Allen Raymond
Encyclopedia
Education and career
Before joining the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Richard Raymond was director of the NebraskaNebraska
Nebraska is a state on the Great Plains of the Midwestern United States. The state's capital is Lincoln and its largest city is Omaha, on the Missouri River....
Department of Health and Human Services Regulation & Licensure division where he oversaw regulatory programs involving health care and environmental issues. He had been appointed to the position on October 16, 2004 by then-Nebraska governor Mike Johanns
Mike Johanns
Michael Owen "Mike" Johanns is an American Republican politician who has been the junior United States Senator from Nebraska since 2009. Previously he was the 38th Governor of Nebraska from 1999 to 2005 and was U.S. Secretary of Agriculture from 2005 to 2007, becoming the fourth Nebraskan to hold...
. He was also Nebraska's Chief Medical Officer; he had been appointed to that position in January 1999. Raymond graduated from Hastings College and earned his medical degree from the University of Nebraska Medical Center. For 17 years, he practiced medicine in rural Nebraska.
There, he established and directed a community-based Family Practice Residency for Clarkson Medical Center. He served as president of the Nebraska Medical Association, chaired Nebraska Governor Mike Johanns' Blue Ribbon Panel on Infant Mortality, and served on numerous state committees related to public health. He was also president of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) and has been a member of the association's Preparedness Committee for three years.
Under Secretary for Food Safety
In November 2005, Richard Raymond was interviewed by the Washington Post, which had christened him the "germ czar," on the subject of ThanksgivingThanksgiving
Thanksgiving Day is a holiday celebrated primarily in the United States and Canada. Thanksgiving is celebrated each year on the second Monday of October in Canada and on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States. In Canada, Thanksgiving falls on the same day as Columbus Day in the...
food safety. In May 2006, he appeared in television and radio advertisements seeking to ease concerns about the bird flu, saying, "It's important for you to know that it’s safe to eat poultry, even if bird flu is detected here sometime in the future." In October 2006, he criticized the idea of combining multiple agencies into a single agency responsible for food safety as an "unnecessary solution."
In December 2006, he disputed a report by Consumer Reports
Consumer Reports
Consumer Reports is an American magazine published monthly by Consumers Union since 1936. It publishes reviews and comparisons of consumer products and services based on reporting and results from its in-house testing laboratory. It also publishes cleaning and general buying guides...
in which 83% of chickens they tested were infected with campylobacter
Campylobacter
Campylobacter is a genus of bacteria that are Gram-negative, spiral, and microaerophilic. Motile, with either unipolar or bipolar flagella, the organisms have a characteristic spiral/corkscrew appearance and are oxidase-positive. Campylobacter jejuni is now recognized as one of the main causes...
and/or salmonella
Salmonella
Salmonella is a genus of rod-shaped, Gram-negative, non-spore-forming, predominantly motile enterobacteria with diameters around 0.7 to 1.5 µm, lengths from 2 to 5 µm, and flagella which grade in all directions . They are chemoorganotrophs, obtaining their energy from oxidation and reduction...
bacteria, noting that the sample of 500 chickens tested was "very small." In February 2007, Richard Raymond ordered stepped-up inspections at some meat and poultry plants where the threat of E. coli is high or past visits found unsafe practices. On the subject of China's banning of pork containing ractopamine, he said that he hoped Beijing could change its stance if the Codex Alimentarius Commission, an international food safety body, could endorse tolerance levels for it.