Beef Hides Studied in E. coli HUS Poisoning
By Kathy Will
The latest USDA figures show that the national cost of foodborne illness outbreaks adds up to tens of billions of dollars a year in lost income, medical costs, productivity and long-term illnesses such as meningitis or E. coli kidney failure.
It’s a huge, complicated problem that defies its simple origins: animal poop. In the case of beef-related outbreaks of E. coli O157:H7 or Salmonella, the cattle often carry it into the slaughter plants on their hides.
The issue is well-explained in a 2007 E. coli study by scientists at USDA’s Agricultural Research Service. They studied the hides of cull cows, bulls and dairy cattle in four geographic areas of the U.S. and found that only four percent of hides had neither E. coli O157:H7 nor Salmonella embedded in them (from contact with their own manure) as they entered the slaughterhouse. The researchers studied cull cattle because the group represents 15 percent of the total U.S. beef supply and a majority of it is marketed as ground beef, which carries a higher risk of HUS E. coli infection for consumers.
Based on these results and previous scientific studies that have found a strong correlation between hide contamination and carcass contamination, it’s tempting to guess that dirty hides may have caused two major beef recalls this summer. The JBS Swift E. coli outbreak involved a recall of 400,000 pounds of ground beef while the Cargill Beef Packers Salmonella outbreak involved a recall of 825,769 pounds of ground beef.
National food safety law firm Pritzker Olsen attorneys is still accepting cases from these outbreaks and a food poisoning attorney at the firm can be reached at 1-888-377-8900 (Toll Free).
According to the study, the prevalence of Salmonella on hides before evisceration was 89.6 percent. The average prevalence of E. coli O157:H7 was 46.9 percent. Exactly one-third of hides were contaminated with both pathogens. Intervention protocols were more effective on reducing Salmonella than E. coli.
Researchers swabbed the hides in search of bacteria. They repeated the tests on the same hides after plant workers did routine intervention work. The study said some plants clearly did a better job than others at intervention.
Tags: e. coli hus
