E coli Food Safety Efforts Draw Environmental Backlash
The Resource Conservation District of Monterey County, California, conducted a recent survey showing that 89 percent of farmers in the Central Coast have removed vegetation around fields destroying animal habitat — a development that is linked to E. coli prevention efforts by the state’s leafy greens industry.
Some environmentalists in the area are questioning the wisdom of the practice, which could expand nationwide if federal regulators adopt provisions of the California Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement.
Trimming natural vegetation surrounding farm fields in the Salinas Valley, aka our nation’s Salad Bowl, was encouraged after public health investigators noted that wild boars may have been responsible for spreading E. coli O157:H7 in spinach crops in 2006. The2006 baby spinach E. coli outbreak killed three people and hospitalized more than 200 others across the country.
The practice is intended to make the edges inhospitable to wildlife, but groups like the Wild Farm Alliance are concerned that the eradication is bad for the environment.
Jo Ann Baumgartner, a member of the Alliance, told the Santa Cruz Sentinel in a story today that research by scientists at UC Davis states that the surrounding grasses and wetlands have the ability to filter up to 99 percent of E. coli when it rains.
Here’s more clips from the story:
“There is science to support that these strips of vegetation prevent the movement of pathogens,” said Andrew Gordus of California Fish and Game. “If you keep filtration systems in, you help prevent those pathogens from moving downstream.”
Dale Coke, owner of Coke Farms in Watsonville, notes that it is not just E. coli that washes downstream.
“If you’ve sprayed your fields, it goes into the water system,” said Coke, who chose not to sign the leafy greens agreement and abide by its rules. “All these pesticides and fertilizers will just end up in the streams and in the oceans.”
Ground Beef E coli Detected by School Lunch Program
A screen for E. coli O157:H7 in raw hamburger and a similar screen for Salmonella used by the national school lunch program has led to changes in the way the USDA is treating a major supplier of ground beef.
In 2007, USDA exempted South Dakota-based Beef Products Inc. from routine testing for E. coli O157:H7 after the agency endorsed a process that the company said reduced the bacteria “to an undetectable level.” The process? Injecting beef with ammonia.
But a story last week by New York Times reporter Michael Moss disclosed that food safety protocols at the national school lunch program had found E. coli and Salmonella pathogens dozens of times in Beef Products meat, challenging claims about the effectiveness of the ammonia treatment. The lunch program operates within USDA and last year purchased 5.5 million pounds of processed beef products.
Since 2005,E. coli has been found 3 times and Salmonella 48 times, including back-to-back incidents in August in which two 27,000-pound batches were found to be contaminated, the Times reported. The meat was caught before reaching lunchrooms.
In July, school lunch officials temporarily banned their hamburger makers from using meat from a Beef Products facility in Kansas because of Salmonella — the third suspension in three years, records obtained by reporter Moss show. Yet the facility remained approved by the USDA for other customers.
Presented by The Times with the school lunch test results, top USDA officials said they were not aware of what their colleagues in the lunch program had been finding for years. In response, the agriculture department said it was revoking Beef Products’ exemption from routine testing and conducting a review of the company’s operations and research.
Beef Products maintains that its ammonia process remains effective. It said it tests samples of each batch it ships to customers and has found E. coli in only 0.06 percent of the samples this year.
Large Scale Vaccine Trial Started to Prevent Beef E coli Outbreaks
Cargill’s beef packing division is in the midst of a large-scale trial of a vaccine in cattle to combat E. coli O157:H7, a potentially deadly human pathogen that continues to cause massive E. coli ground beef recalls and multi-state outbreaks of E. coli infection.
A Cargill spokesman told the Lincoln Journal Star newspaper in Nebraska that the company is working with feedlot owners to position the slaughter of about 100,000 vaccinated cattle in the May-September period of 2010. The trial involves about a dozen feedlots and Cargill’s beef plant at Fort Morgan, Colorado. Cargill is the largest producer of ground beef in the United States.
While studies have shown varying degrees of effectiveness, many researchers believe E. coli vaccines can reduce the number of animals carrying the bacteria by 65 to 75 percent. While no one contends that vaccines will wipe out the strain of E. coli that causes hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) and thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP), a reduction in the volume of bacteria is expected to curtail the number of E. coli O157:H7 outbreaks.
The latest one is an active E. coli restaurant steak outbreak related to the December 24th recall by National Steak and Poultry of 248,000 pounds of boneless steak and other beef products sold to restaurants. Officials so far have said 21 people have been sickened in 16 states, including Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Colorado, South Dakota, Washington, Kansas and Iowa.
More common are outbreaks involving ground beef.
According to a review of federal records by national food safety law firm Pritzker Olsen Attorneys, more than 1 million pounds of ground beef and beef cuts intended for grinding were recalled from market in 2009 by USDA-inspected slaughter plants and processors. The largest of the 15 recalls covered 545,699 pounds of ground beef produced this fall by Fairbank Farms of Ashville, N.Y.
Multi-state E. coli outbreaks associated with these recalls killed at least three people and sickened at least 80, according to the records. The outbreaks resulted in at least 34 hospitalizations and eight confirmed cases of life-threatening hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), a disease especially dangerous to children that causes kidney failure and many other serious health conditions.
From January 2007 to December 2009, the industry initiated at least 52 recalls of beef tainted with E. coli O157:H7 compared with 20 in the three previous years, according to the New York Times.
Steak Safety: The Straight Story
E. coli in steak: What you need to know
Is it always safe to eat a steak served rare? Seems like a simple question.
But a Dec. 24 National Steak and Poultry recall of almost 250,000 pounds of blade-tenderized beef forced consumers and health officials to reevaluate the question—especially after government agencies associated the recalled beef with 21 cases of E. coli in 16 states.
Typically, ground beef comes to mind when considering meat that could be tainted with E. coli. But this outbreak involved blade-tenderized, or what health officials call “non-intact” beef, which included steaks, beef medallions and sirloin tips. “Blade-tenderized” or “non-intact” refers to meat that has been punctured with needles or blades to break down the tissue and make a tougher cut of muscle more tender. Any pathogen (like E. coli) on the surface of the beef is normally killed in the cooking process if the beef is intact. But the mechanical tenderization process drives pathogens inside the beef. If it isn’t cooked until the internal temperature reaches at least 140 degrees, the beef could still contain the pathogen.
Government officials and industry groups offer mixed advice on what consumers should do. The National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods determined in 2002 that non-intact beef can indeed harbor infective amounts of E. coli, but that following the 140-degree rule will put you in the clear. A 2002 risk assessment by the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) concluded there is almost no difference in risk of illness from intact versus non-intact steaks.
And yet there have been several E. coli outbreaks since then involving mechanically tenderized meat. This has put the spotlight on the issue of labeling. If non-intact steak must be cooked a certain way to guarantee its safety, then shouldn’t consumers have the right to know whether their steak is intact so they can cook it accordingly? That was the recommendation issued in a 2005 study by the Minnesota Department of Health following a 2003 outbreak of E. coli associated with blade-tenderized frozen steaks sold by door-to-door salesmen. In light of the National Steak and Poultry outbreak, U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro called for labeling of non-intact steaks, stating “USDA has been aware of the E. coli risks associated with mechanically tenderized steaks as early as 1999, but has refused to act…consumers should be made fully aware of the products they are receiving so they can assure that they are cooked at the appropriate temperature.”
Furthermore, does this mean every time we eat at a restaurant, we should order our steak cooked to an internal temperature of 140 degrees? The National Restaurant Association in 2000 decided that restaurant patrons asking for rare- or medium-cooked steak should be informed that non-intact steaks should be cooked to at least 145 degrees to ensure safety. But when is the last time your server told you that?
Illness in E. coli Lab Worker Prompts Warning
By Kathy Will
A laboratory worker who handles E. coli bacteria at North Dakota State University (NDSU) is suffering from a gastrointestinal illness that could possibly be caused by E. coli.
Tests are pending, but as a precaution, the university has issued an email alert to staff and students warning them to be extra careful with hygiene and the promptly report any diarrheal illness they may contract. The natural concern is to protect against a person-to-person E. coli outbreak..
According to the Fargo Forum, the NDSU E. coli scientist who is ill works in the university’s Center for Nanoscale Science and Engineering. A university spokeswoman did not specify Friday whether the employee was working with E. coli O157:H7, E. coli 0111 or some other type of the bacteria. E. coli O157:H7 and E. coli 0111 are among the type that produce a Shiga toxin that can lead to a serious complication known a Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome, or E. coli HUS.
Young children, the elderly and people who have weakened immune systems are most susceptiple to HUS, which is the leading cause of E. coli deaths. Most cases are contracted from eating food contaminated with E. coli, but person-to-person transmission is an important way the bacteria can be spread.
