Food Poisoning Law Blog

Yesterday, Dr. Richard Raymond, USDA Under Secretary for Food Safety, spoke to reporters regarding the department’s E. coli O157:H7 actions. The following is an excerpt from the transcript with comments and explanations:  

Dr. Richard Raymond: Since January there have been 15 recalls related to E. coli in beef this year, eight of those have been associated with human illnesses. In comparison, in 2006 there were only eight related recalls and none of those were related to human illnesses and in 2005 there were only five E. coli related recalls. So obviously something has changed.

. . . We are announcing today that we will begin testing more domestic and imported ground beef components.  [These components are beef trim and other meat parts, such as hear muscle and weasand meat (the smooth muscular lining which surrounds the oesophagus from the larynx to the paunch). Are you hungry yet?]. FSIS will begin testing these materials that are used as components in raw ground beef, in addition to the beef trim that is already tested, which is the primary component of ground beef. [The heart muscle, weasand meat, etc. has not been tested in the past.] FSIS is also requiring countries whose beef is imported to the U.S. to conduct the same sampling or at least an equivalent measure. [The USDA-FSIS (Food Safety Inspection Service) has not been testing imported beef trim. American consumers should be outraged that this has not been happening.]

One area where I feel we have made progress is in getting recalls done more rapidly. [Reality check: The recall of almost 22 million pounds (initially over 300,000 pounds) of Topps hamburgers began 18 days after FSIS confirmed E. coli O157:H7 in a Topps hamburger.   40 people have confirmed E. coli infections from Topps hamburgers.] FSIS now takes into account a broader, more complete range of evidence when evaluating whether to seek a recall or whether to take regulatory action. This gives the agency a credible approach to more rapidly taking action when certain types of evidence are available. In two recent cases, FSIS acted upon epidemiological evidence that linked illness to opened, FSIS-inspected product found in consumers freezers. There was more than 1 million pounds of ground beef recalled as a result of that and this would not have happened prior to looking at our recall procedures.

But we still acknowledge that we can and must do better. We are looking at training and staffing patterns to ensure inspection program personnel and supervisors are doing their jobs correctly. That they are held accountable, that they have appropriate workloads and appropriate supervision. [FSIS inspectors were at the Topps plant an hour or two per day and did not cite the company for failing to adequately test the beef, using grinding practices that were unsafe, and other problems. Did they know they were supposed to cite the company and choose not to do so, or were they poorly trained? We believe a federal investigation into what happened at the Topps plant is needed.]

Based on the challenges posed by E. coli O157:H7 and what we have learned from recent recalls, I believe that we need to take additional time to strengthen our system and the data that supports it before moving forward with risk based inspection in processing.  

. . . In the spring of 2007, concerns were expressed about the FSIS practice that allowed inspection program personnel to discard raw ground beef samples for product that was going to be diverted to cooking or destroyed, after testing positive by the industry. This essentially removed this raw product from the marketplace. This practice was followed because cooked or destroyed product did not pose a human health risk for E. coli O157:H7 when the plant had found it to be positive and either discarded it or cooked it. [What is meant here is that when a raw ground beef sample tested positive for E. coli O157:H7, FSIS threw away the sample without getting a DNA fingerprint of the E. coli that could be used to link the contaminated meat to a case of E. coli in a consumer. The illogical justification behind this was that the beef was going to be cooked or destroyed by the processor or other party in possession of the meat. But some of  this raw ground beef still did get into the market. The hundreds of E. coli cases with “unknown sources” each year were most likely attributable to this, and the FSIS had to know this.] 

FSIS implemented a new policy on September 28, 2007, under which FSIS inspection program personnel send samples to FSIS labs for testing irrespective of the company's test results. While the previous practice did not pose a human health risk [yes it did], this new approach will allow us to increase the number of Pulse-Field Gel samples that will be entered into PulseNet. [Perhaps now more people who suffer from E. coli infections will be able to get justice and hold the responsible parties accountable.]

Finally, I want to emphasize again, how important it is to me personally to base agency actions on the need to protect the public's health. As I have often said I did not move to Washington to oversee recalls, but instead to prevent food borne illnesses. Even one illness is too many. With the actions we are going to outline today for you, I believe we are on the right track to bringing those E. coli numbers back down to where historically they have been for the past two or three years. [The goal should be elimination of E. coli O157:H7 in the food chain. This is a realistic goal because E. coli O157:H7 is preventable—it is merely a matter of keeping cow manure out of meat and off of produce.]

To read the full FSIS transcript, please click here.