Raw Milk E coli Debate Churns in Wisconsin
Raw milk supporters arrived by busloads yesterday in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, for a legislative hearing on a bill that public health officials say could lead to E. coli O157:H7 outbreaks and deaths by liberalizing trade in unpasteurized milk and other dairy products.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel estimated the crowd at about 450 people.
Still known as America’s Dairyland, Wisconsin this year is the center of the national raw milk debate that pits science and life-threatening illness against hard-core resistance to regulation that is based on libertarianism and disproven beliefs that raw milk has more nutritional value and other health benefits.
The Wisconsin raw milk bill, which is being discussed by the Legislature this year, would legalize the sale of raw milk, buttermilk, cream and butter within wide parameters. Farmers would be required to display a health warning sign and obtain a permit.
Many states have an outright ban against raw milk sales to protect citizens from potentially deadly microbiological contamination from cow feces.
Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection officials oppose allowing sales of raw milk to the general public, saying it could lead to outbreaks of E. coli, Campylobacter and Salmonella with deadly consequences.
“Our job is to protect public health. We believe the law, the way it’s written now, does that as best as possible,” Steve Ingham, administrator of the agency’s food safety division, testified at Wednesday’s hearing.
Since 2000, four outbreaks of illness due to Campylobacter infection have been linked to unpasteurized milk or unpasteurized dairy products in Wisconsin. Those outbreaks sickened at least 131 people, according to the Wisconsin Division of Public Health.
Despite the good intentions of farmers, fecal poisoning of milk can’t be stopped reliably without pasteurization as a kill step.
The Wisconsin Public Health Association and Wisconsin Association of Local Health Departments and Boards have urged legislators not to legalize raw milk sales. Also opposed to the bill is the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation, which fears that E. coli outbreaks would give the greater dairy industry a black eye.
Many experts, including the federal Food and Drug Administration, say there are no health benefits from drinking raw milk that can’t be gained from drinking pasteurized milk.
And from a financial perspective, public health departments say they would incur enormous expense investigating all the E. coli and Campylobacter outbreaks that would occur if raw milk was legalized.
Vet’s Testimony on Oversight Sheds New Light on Beef E. coli
Years of ground beef E. coli outbreaks will be put in new light today by a slaughterhouse veterinarian’s testimony that supervisors shelved citations written by front-line government safety personnel for dangerous and cruel practices.
The vet says writers of citations were threatened with transfers. It is easy to imagine in the culture he describes that inspectors might have looked the other way at ground beef E. coli risks to stay out of trouble with supervisors in order to keep their jobs.
The whistleblower is Dean Wyatt, a supervisory veterinarian at the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), the agency responsible for keeping E. coli O157:H7 and other potentially deadly pathogens out of our meat supply. According to USA Today reporter Peter Eisler, who obtained an advance copy of the testimony, Wyatt is to appear before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in Washington.
Wyatt witnessed practices as an FSIS vet that would increase the risk of E. coli O157:H7 contamination. For instance, he found downed calves being dragged through pens to slaughter — a violation because contact with feces can contaminate animals.
The abuse occurred at Bushway Packing Inc. in Grand Isle, Vermont. Wyatt says he ordered suspensions in operations three times at Bushway in 2008 and early 2009 but managers overruled him and allowed the plant to keep running.
Bushway subsequently made headlines last fall when the Humane Society of the United States filmed undercover video of workers hitting and using electric prods to move calves. The plant was shut down. USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack ordered a criminal investigation.
Wyatt also says superiors dismissed violations he reported in 2007 and 2008 at a Seaboard Foods pork plant in Guymon, Oklahoma. He cited the plant for slaughtering conscious pigs, beating pigs and trampling of pigs, USA Today is reporting.
Wyatt’s experiences “illustrate a pattern that FSIS is broken and must be fixed,” Amanda Hitt of the Government Accountability Project, told USA Today. USDA spokesman Caleb Weaver told the newspaper that inaction on Wyatt’s reports occurred before the tenure of Vilsack, who is “fully committed” to enforcing safe and humane slaughtering rules.
Bacteria Control Critical in Stopping Bagged Lettuce E. coli
With the latest issue of Consumer Reports confirming that the produce industry is still selling pre-washed, bagged salad greens that contain problematic levels of bacteria, it’s appropriate to review why this will no doubt lead to another outbreak of E. coli O157:H7, Salmonella or Listeria.
Since 1993, at least 20 Escherichia coli O157:H7 outbreaks have been traced to California-grown leafy greens – primarily lettuce and spinach. Most of these outbreaks involved packaged product that, despite several chlorinated washes, contained sufficient numbers of E. coli O157:H7 to cause infection at the time of consumption.
Although the exact E. coli contamination routes for these products remain unknown, a federal study published in September 2008 indicates that plant tissue damage from processing and also in the field can promote significant multiplication of E. coli O157:H7 over a short time.
The research findings by the Produce Safety and Microbiology Research Unit of USDA’s Agricultural Research Service in California suggest that harvesting and processing are critical control points in the prevention or reduction of E. coli O157:H7 contamination of lettuce.
The research assessed the role of plant tissue damage (mechanical or diseased-induced lesions) in the contamination of leafy greens with E. coli O157:H7 and the growth of the pathogen.
Within only 4 hours after inoculation, the population sizes of E. coli O157:H7 increased 4.0-, 4.5-, and 11-fold on lettuce leaves that were mechanically bruised, cut into large pieces, and shredded into multiple pieces, respectively.
During the same time, E. coli O157:H7 population sizes increased only two-fold on leaves that were left intact after harvest.
Also, the population size of E. coli O157:H7 was 27 times greater on young leaves affected by soft rot due to infection by Erwinia chrysanthemi than on healthy middle-aged leaves. Confocal microscopy revealed that leaf tip burn lesions harbored dense populations of E. coli cells both internally and externally. Investigation of the cut lettuce stems showed that the pathogen grew 11-fold over 4 hours of incubation after its inoculation.
FSIS Meat Safety Executive To Get New Food Safety Job
President Obama has announced his intent to nominate Dr. Elisabeth Hagen to the new post of Under Secretary for Food Safety at USDA, working under Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack. The move is part of the Obama administration’s focus on strengthening food safety across the board
Dr. Hagen is keenly aware of E. coli O157:H7 contamination problems in beef because she is a former top executive at USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), the agency responsible for keeping America’s meat supply safe.
Here’s the background on Dr. Hagen:
- She is currently the USDA’s Chief Medical Officer, serving as an advisor to USDA mission areas on a wide range of human health issues. As a senior executive at FSIS, she played a key role in developing and executing the agency’s scientific and public health agendas.
- She has been instrumental in building relationships and fostering coordination with food safety and public health partners at the federal, state, and local level.
- Before joining the federal government in 2006, Hagen taught and practiced medicine in both the private and academic sectors, most recently in Washington, DC.
- She holds an M.D. from Harvard Medical School, and a B.S. from Saint Joseph’s University. Dr. Hagen completed her specialty medical training at the University of Texas Southwestern and the University of Pennsylvania, and is board certified in infectious disease.
- She is married and lives with her husband and two young children in Northern Virginia.
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.”
