USDA Considers Labeling to Curb Steak E coli Outbreaks
Jerry Mande, the USDA’s deputy undersecretary for food safety, told the Washington Post that the agency is considering labeling and education efforts to better inform the public about the E. coli O157:H7 risk associated with mechanically tenderized steaks and other beef cuts.
The undersecretary’s comments coincide with an ongoing state and federal investigation of an E. coli steak outbreak associated with blade-tenderized steaks that the USDA says has sickened at least 21 people in 16 states. There are confirmed E. coli steak illnesses in Michigan, Colorado, South Dakota, Iowa, Kansas and Washington.
The outbreak prompted a National Steak and Poultry E. coli recall of 248,000 pounds of steak, sirloin tips, beef medallions, boneless trim and other products that the USDA says were sold to restaurants and hotels across the country. The company has said the products recalled for possible E. coli contamination were primarily sold to Moe’s Southwest Grill, Carino’s Italian Grill and KRM restaurants in the six states where there are confirmed outbreak cases of E. coli.
The Post story quoted the USDA as saying the contamination “appears to have begun with tainted beef used for chopped steak that was “co-mingled” with other products” in National Steak and Poultry’s plant in Owasso, Oklahoma. Nine of the 21 people sickened in the outbreak have been hospitalized, the newspaper reported.
The restaurant steak E. coli outbreak and recall has triggered renewed calls by food safety organizations for USDA to mandate that the industry label beef cuts that are mechanically tenderized in any way — including with blades, needles or injections of brine and other flavorings. Fred Pritzker, founder of national food safety law firm Pritzker Olsen Attorneys, has been one of those voices — saying USDA didn’t go far enough in 1999 when it banned the sale of any mechanically tenderized beef cuts contaminated with E. coli O157:H7.
Pritzker said that’s because testing of so-called non-intact steaks is far from foolproof and without any written warning to consumers that a cut of beef has been mechanically pierced, most people assume it is intact and can be safely cooked rare or medium. But it can’t. Mechanical tenderization drives surface E. coli into the meat center, where it can survive unless cooked well. On intact cuts of beef, flames and heat readily kill E. coli because it’s on the meat surface.
2009 Ground Beef E. coli Recalls Exceed 1 Million Pounds
According to a year-end 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 this year due to evidence of E. coli O157:H7 contamination.
The largest of the 15 recalls from USDA-inspected slaughter and grinding plants 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.
Since January 2007, the industry has 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.
“This data points to the need for sweeping change in the way food safety is regulated in this country,” Fred Pritzker, founder and president of Pritzker Olsen, said in a news release. ”While I agree we cannot ‘test’ our way out of this situation, the current regulatory schemes incentivize producers not to test their product. This is wrong and dangerous and needs to changed.”
At least 24 people from nine states were infected by the same strain of E. coli that Michigan public health investigators found in ground beef produced by JBS Swift Beef Co. There was an initial recall of 41,280 pounds, but it was soon widened to include 380,000 pounds of the product.
A smaller ground beef E. coli outbreak killed a 7-year-old Cleveland girl. Ohio health investigators associated her death with contaminated ground beef from Valley Meats LLC of Coal Valley, Ill., which recalled 95,898 pounds of potentially tainted hamburger meat in May that had been delivered to restaurants.
Another isolated but disturbing hamburger E. coli outbreak occurred in October at a nature camp in Plymouth, Mass. In that case, more than 20 children and chaperons from a middle school in Rhode Island were sickened by contaminated ground beef traced to a meat packer in Brockton, Mass.
The Fairbank Farms recall was associated with an outbreak that killed two people and sickened 26. Records show 19 people were hospitalized and five developed HUS.
Steak E. coli Outbreak Investigated by Food Safety Attorneys
National food safety law firm Pritzker Olsen is investigating a possible nationwide E. coli O157:H7 outbreak involving meat injected with tenderizing ingredients and served at large United States restaurant chains.
Lower-quality cuts of meat are often injected with ingredients, such as brine, to enhance a steak’s flavor and tenderness. However, if the brine is contaminated with E. coli O157:H7, it can then contaminate a steak into which it is injected.
These injections and mechanical tenderizing techniques may enhance flavor but can be dangerous to consumers when brine is contaminated and when meat isn’t cooked well.
About 94 percent of surveyed meat processors use similar methods to “mechanically tenderize” meat, according to a 2003 study cited by a Colorado State University report.
Prior to 1999, it was thought that only ground beef should be tested for E. coli, until the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service expanded testing to “non-intact” beef such as cuts of steak. Since then, five out of six foodborne E. coli outbreaks associated with non-intact beef have involved moisture-enhanced steaks, according to the Colorado State University report.
Pritzker Olsen attorneys have been contacted by E. coli O157:H7 survivors about this outbreak. If you believe you or a loved one have suffered damages from this potential E. coli O157:H7 outbreak or know anything about it, please contact us immediately.
FDA and FSIS Collaborate to Fight Outbreaks of E. coli and Other Harmful Pathogens
Federal food safety officials plan to discuss improving the country’s system for tracing the causes of food poisoning at a public meeting Dec. 9 and 10, according to a press release issued Thursday by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The meeting, to be held at the USDA offices in Washington, D.C. will address the need to increase the speed and accuracy of food poisoning outbreak investigations and implement procedures to prevent future outbreaks.
“This public meeting provides an opportunity for FDA to collaborate more closely with FSIS as well as with members of the food industry, many of whom have been making important innovations in food safety practices and technology, and all of whom bear primary responsibility for producing and marketing safe food,” said Michael R. Taylor, senior advisor to FDA’s Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, M.D.
The announcement comes in the wake of a multistate outbreak of E. coli 0157:H7 that struck 26 people in late October and early November, killing two and hospitalizing others. The illnesses are associated with more than half a million pounds of ground beef that was recalled Oct. 31 by Ashville, N.Y.-based Fairbank Farms. Just days earlier, another recall of about 1,000 pounds of beef from a Massachusetts firm was associated with several cases of E. coli 0157:H7 in a group of Rhode Island school children.
Food safety attorney Fred Pritzker supports the FSIS and FDA in their recognition that it is vital to improve America’s faltering food safety system by addressing gaps in food product tracing and mandating testing and inspection at all points along the food supply chain. “Families should not have to worry about whether the food on their dinner table, be it hamburgers or salad, is contaminated with E. coli,” Pritzker said. “There are clear measures government officials can take to mitigate that risk.”
There are many strains of E. coli bacteria that are categorized into more than 170 serogroups, which in turn are broken down into one or more serotypes. The E. coli strain primarily responsible for E. coli-related injury and death is classified as Escherichia coli O157:H7 (E. coli 0157:H7). The harmful pathogen can do severe damage to the intestinal lining and can also result in hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), which is the leading cause of kidney failure in children in the United States.
Those interested in attending the public meeting can pre-register online and consumer inquiries may be directed to: 888-INFO-FDA.
Attorney Fred Pritzker Calls on Fairbank Farms to Compensate E. coli Victims
A lawsuit has been filed on behalf of a child who was sickened by E. coli O157:H7 against Fairbank Farms, an Ashville, New York firm that recalled over 500,000 pounds of ground beef products on October 31, 2009. The Fairbank Farms lawsuit was filed in Massachusetts.
To date, CDC reports 26 cases of E. coli O157:H7 associated with the recalled Fairbank Farms ground beef products. The states involved in this outbreak include California, Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Vermont.
Attorney Fred Pritzker, a national food safety lawyer, calls on Fairbank Farms to pay the medical expenses incurred by these E. coli victims:
“Eating a hamburger should not be a high-risk activity,” said Pritzker. “This outbreak was preventable. Fairbank Farms should take responsibility for the harm caused by its ground beef products and immediately pay the medical expenses of those sickened while legal cases are being resolved.”
Health officials found E. coli O157:H7 in ground beef recovered from an infected person’s home that matched the outbreak-strain of E. coli O157:H7 that sickened people in this outbreak, according to the CDC:
Health officials in several states who were investigating a cluster of E. coli O157:H7 illnesses, with isolates that match by “DNA fingerprinting” analyses [PFGE analysis], found that most ill persons had consumed ground beef, with several purchasing the same or similar product from a common retail chain. At least some of the illnesses appear to be associated with products subject to these recalls. A sample from an opened package of ground beef recovered from a patient’s home was tested by the Massachusetts Department of Health and yielded an E. coli O157:H7 isolate that matched the patient isolates by DNA analysis.
E. coli O157:H7 emits a powerful Shiga toxin that attacks red blood cells in humans. Its effects can range from mild gastrointestinal discomfort to death and people who have weakened or underdeveloped immune systems — especially children under 5 and adults over 60 — are most vulnerable.
Two people have died in this outbreak, and 16 people have been hospitalized. Of those hospitalized, three developed hemolytic uremic syndrome, or HUS. This is a life-threatening complication of E. coli O157:H7 infection that kills more than 4 percent of its victims. Even when it’s not fatal, patients often suffer life-long health consequences. HUS is the leading cause of kidney failure in children in the United States.
“The people sickened in this outbreak and their families should not be burdened with medical bills while Fairbank Farms fights over other issues, such as compensation for pain and suffering,” stated Pritzker. “Paying the medical expenses immediately is the least Fairbank Farms can do.”
Pritzker Olsen is one of the few law firms in the United States that practices extensively in the area of E. coli litigation. For more information, call 1-888-377-8900 (toll free) or email Attorney Fred Pritzker.
