Testing For Big Six E. coli Strains Delayed Until June

Posted on February 9, 2012 by PritzkerLaw

 The March 5 deadline for companies to begin testing for six additional strains of E.coli, the “Big Six,” has been extended 90 days to give meatpackers time to make sure their testing methods work, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced February 8.

The agency’s Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) will now begin routine sampling of E. coli serogroups O26, O45, O103, O111, O121 and O145 on June 4. That brings to seven the total number of banned E.coli strains. The strain, 0157.H7, was banned in 1994.

FSIS will initially sample raw beef trimmings and other raw ground beef product components. If the serogroups are found in meat test samples, those products will be prohibited from entering commerce. 

The USDA estimates that the ban on the additional six strains will reduce by 110,000 the number of foodborne illnesses reported in the U.S. each year.

 

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Contaminated Meat a "Growing Concern"

Posted on April 14, 2010 by PritzkerLaw
This is how bad it's getting with meat contamination and food safety:
 
According to a story by Peter Eisler in USA Today,  Mexican authorities in 2008 rejected a U.S. beef shipment because its copper levels exceeded Mexican standards.
 
Now, because there is no U.S. limit for copper and other harmful residues in beef, the USDA had no grounds for blocking the beef's producer from reselling the rejected meat in the United States.
 
That tidbit was found in an audit by the USDA's Office of Inspector General ripping the government for not setting limits on pesticides, veterinary antibiotics and heavy metals in meat being sold to the public. 
 
The audit found that limits have not been set by the EPA and FDA "for many potentially harmful substances, which can impair FSIS' enforcement activities.''
 
The health effects on people who eat such meat are a "growing concern," the audit adds.
 
FSIS stands for Food Safety and Inspection Service, the USDA agency in charge of keeping  E. coli O157:H7 and other dangerous human pathogens out of the meat supply.
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Beef Packers Salmonella Victim Represented by Pritzker Olsen

Posted on December 2, 2009 by PritzkerLaw

National food safety law firm Pritzker Olsen Attorneys is representing an Arizona client who became sick with Salmonella not long after an August 2009 ground beef recall.

The original recall involved 825,769 pounds of ground beef produced by Fresno, California.-based Beef Packers, Inc., which is owned by Cargill Meat Solutions, a subsidiary of Cargill, Inc.

This is the same contaminated beef recall investigated by reporters at USA Today, who found in a story published this week that the federal government accepted shipments from Beef Packers for the national school lunch program during the same time period that the plant was producing tainted ground beef.
 
The recalled beef was distributed in Arizona, California, Colorado and Utah. Some of the recalled beef was distributed to and repackaged by Safeway, which recalled the beef from stores in Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, South Dakota and Wyoming.
 
At the time of the recall, the Colorado Department of Public Health reported at least 15 confirmed cases of Salmonella associated with Safeway ground beef products.
 
Anyone sickened in this outbreak may have claims against Safeway, Beef Packers and Cargill. To contact Pritzker Olsen, call toll-free 1-888-377-8900 or complete our online contact and information form on the side of this web page.

 

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