Why Won’t USDA Mandate E. coli Beef Trim Tests?
By Brendan Flaherty
Of all the revelations made by New York Times reporter Michael Moss in his excellent food safety story last Sunday, the one that jumped off the page the most was a quote from a safety officer at American Foodservice, a company that grinds one million pounds of hamburger a day.
The officer, Timothy P. Biela, said big slaughterhouses won’t sell beef trimmings to grinding plants if the plants test incoming shipments for E. coli O157:H7, a potentially deadly pathogen that was banned from finished ground beef in 1994.
“They would not sell to us,” Biela said. “If I test and it’s positive, I put them in a regulatory situation. So we don’t do that.”
What he is saying is that the big slaughterhouses are wary that a positive E. coli test at a grinding plant would trigger huge recalls of meat sold to others plants as well. It’s a dangerous industry practice and the USDA’s Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS), the agency in charge of ensuring meat safety, has been looking the other way.
In fact, the FSIS has the power to change this, but they choose not to. Why? The practice only protects unsanitary slaughterhouses. Dr. Kenneth Petersen, an assistant administrator with FSIS, told the Times that his department could mandate testing, but that it needed to consider the impact on companies as well as consumers.
“I have to look at the entire industry, not just what is best for public health,” Petersen said.
Amazing stuff, especially when you consider the bottom line of the Times’ story: Eating ground beef is still a gamble — one that can cost lives when E. coli O157:H7 infections develop into hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) – which happens in five to 10 percent of all cases. In the prime example of the Times story, a Minnesota dance instructor was paralyzed from the waist down after eating a hamburger produced by Cargill that was laden with the outbreak strain of E. coli O157:H7 in a 2007 outbreak that sickened more than 900 people.
The story traced the ingredients that went into the contaminated, frozen patties made by Cargill. The “Angus Beef Patties,” as labeled, were actually made from cheap, low-grade trimmings and scraps that came from cow parts that were more likely to come in contact with feces during slaughter than more expensive cuts. The fatty ingredients came from slaughter plants in Nebraska, Texas, Uruguay and South Dakota and were mixed together to make frozen patties. The South Dakota ingredients had been treated with ammonia to kill bacteria, the story said.
In 2008, the USDA issued draft guidelines to slaughterhouses and grinders saying every production lot should be sampled and tested fore leaving the supplier and again at the receiver. But after the draft guideline received negative reaction from industry, the guidelines were never made official.
What could be more important than guarding public health? Isn’t that the ultimate consideration with food? After reading the New York Times story, the truth is that money sometimes comes first.
If you or a loved one has been sickened in a ground beef E. coli outbreak, contact national food safety law firm Pritzker Olsen Attorneys. Our firm is one of the few in the country practicing extensively in the area of foodborne illness litigation. We have collected tens of millions for victims of food poisoning and we also are dedicated to the prevention of pathogenic outbreaks. For more information, call a food safety lawyer at 1-888-377-8900 (Toll Free). To receive a free case consultation, , complete one of our online forms.
