The recall announcement is being amended to revise the geographic distribution and to note that some of the recalled products were distributed to a firm in California for further processing. The further-processing facility is not named. The products subject to recall bear the establishment number “EST. 8268″ inside the USDA mark of inspection as well as a production code of 27509 through 01210. These products were produced on various dates between Oct. 2, 2009 and Jan. 12, 2010. They were distributed to retail outlets and institutional foodservice providers in California, Nevada, Washington, Oregon, Arizona and internationally, and to a firm in California for further processing, the amended recall said.

USDA became aware of the problem on July 15 when the agency was notified by the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) of a small E. coli O157:H7 cluster of illnesses with a rare strain as determined by DNA fingerprinting. A total of six patients with illness onset dates between April 8 and June 18, 2010 were reported at that time. After further review, CDPH added another patient from February to the case count, bringing the count to seven.

FSIS is continuing to work with the CDPH and the company on the investigation. Anyone with signs or symptoms of foodborne illness should contact a health care provider.

The research, published August 1 by the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology, was conducted by the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service.

E. coli 0157:H7 is a dangerous foodborne pathogen in humans that grows benignly in cattle.

It is common to test cattle feces to determine if any individual animal is shedding the bacteria, but scientists are seeking more information about where in the cattle gastrintestinal tract the E. coli can be found. The information is needed for the purpose of fighting the bug.

The research team found E. coli O157:H7 in samples from the mouth, pharynx, tonsils, lymph nodes, esophagus, all four sections of the stomach, and the small and large intestines, though the specific locations of positive cultures varied between animals.

“Although 31 percent of the animals were culture positive for E. coli O157:H7 somewhere along the intestinal tract, only 26 percent of those were fecal-culture positive. These data suggest that fecal shedding underestimated E. coli O157:H7 prevalence in the beef cattle gut and identified potential intervention sites,” the researchers concluded.

In short, fecal shedding underestimated E. coli O157:H7.

Consensus within the beef industry is that beef producers should follow basic recommended principles of cattle management. The following are the basic recommended principles of cattle management.

1. Clean water;
2. Clean feed;
3. Clean environment that is appropriately drained;
4. Separate housing of calves and heifer or reduced animal density; and
5. Biosecurity—wildlife exclusion to the extent possible.

According to the FSIS, current research has not shown a reduction E. coli O157:H7 shedding in cattle when these basic principles are used. Nevertheless, FSIS supports the principles because of their foundation in animal health and welfare. They provide a foundation for the processing interventions and sanitary dressing procedures used to control E. coli O157:H7 contamination in raw beef.

Under the current system, meat products adulterated with E. coli are only traced back to the packing plant or butcher shop they came from — a system that protects multi-national corporations that dominate beef slaughter and spend millions each year lobbying Congress. Dangerous food contamination often begins at their facilities early in the supply chain— where meat sometimes comes into contact with E. coli-harboring manure.

Tester wants to compel USDA meat inspectors to trace E. coli and other pathogens to the facility of  original contamination.

With help from one of Montana’s small meat plant operators — Miles City’s John Munsell — Tester has introduced a bill that would amend the Meat Inspection Act with stronger testing and traceback protocols.

Tester said his legislation is designed to hold the right people accountable when there is a life-threatening outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 in ground beef or other meat product.

“This bill puts more common sense and fairness into the equation as our food travels through the supply chain to the kitchen table,” Tester said.  “This bill will make our food safer to eat by ramping up accountability.  And it will help small meat processors in rural America that too often get blamed for contamination that didn’t begin with them.”

Tester’s Meat Safety and Accountability Act will now go to the Senate Agriculture Committee.

Estimates are imprecise, but microbiologists guess that more than 70,000 Americans fall ill every year from E. coli  bacterial infections, the largest source of which is contaminated ground beef. Of those infected, between 5 and 15 percent develop life-threatening HUS E. coli, or hemolytic uremic syndrome, the leading cause of kidney failure in children and the leading cause of E. coli deaths.

An industrywide survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last year found that one of every 200 samples of ground beef was contaminated with E. coli.

HUS and TTP, thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura, are wretched diseases that carry many acute and potentially long-term health consequences. Strokes, convulsions, brain stem injuries, coma, paralysis, heart problems and damage to multiple organs, especially kidneys, are risks that accompany these infections. The difficulties are caused by powerful toxins emitted by the E. coli organisms and there is nothing to stop the toxins as they run their course throughout the body, damaging blood cells and misshaping them.

Such tracing difficulties have created a huge gap in food safety and participants in today’s meeting have a very recent case in point: the Huntington Meat Packing Inc. recall of 5.8 million pounds of ground beef products made under questionable conditions and feared to be contaminated with E. coli

When the two Huntington recalls were announced in January and February by USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, the contaminated meat was said to have been distributed to restaurants, hotels and distributors in California.

 But as Peter Eisler, Elizabeth Weise and Blake Morrison reported this morning in USA Today, more than 200 schools  were initially overlooked as recipients. Some were not notified until mid-March and had been serving meat recalled in mid-February, if not January 18.

The tainted ground beef from Huntington had been used by a company to make tacos and burritos for school lunch and snacks. For instance, the public school district in Arlington, Texas, told USA Today that it received notification of the potential harm on February 17, five days after Huntington’s second recall. The first recall was January 18.

Food Director Jackie Anderson said she didn’t get the news through a phone call or e-mail. It came in a letter sent via regular mail from Fernando’s in Compton, California, makers of a taco snack. The district served 11,000 tacos in February that it learned later were made with recalled Huntington meat.

Even with media attention, USA Today said the number of schools affected by the breakdown in communication and tracing in the Huntington E. coli recall is still growing.

Said the food director in Arlington: “There needs to be a way to notify people earlier — obviously, if we’d known sooner, we would not have served those tacos.”

The ground beef E. coli at Huntington Meat Packing Inc. was found by USDA inspectors in a Food Safety Assessment conducted by USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service. The Montebello, California,-based meatpacker sold the patties and bulk ground beef under the Huntington, Imperial Meat and El Rancho brands.

FSIS says it has yet to receive any illness reports in relation to the contaminated hamburger meat.

E. coli o157:H7 is a potential deadly human pathogen that emits a powerful toxin that causes extremely painful and often bloody diarrhea. In more than 5 percent of cases it develops into hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), a disease that attacks a person’s red blood cells and causes severe illness including kidney failure, strokes, heart problems and other damage. HUS most often affecting young children, the elderly or others who have weakened immune systems.

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.

A recent New York Times story by reporter William Neuman says two vaccines for cattle — one made in Minnesota and the other in Canada — could be making their way to market after long bureaucratic delays in the government approval process.

The Minnesota vaccine, made by Epitopix, has preliminary Agriculture Department approval and will be used in the coming months in extensive trials to see how effective it is at making cattle immune to the organism. Scientists believe it could reduce the bacteria by 65 percent to 75 percent, which might be enough to prevent the typical surge of outbreaks in the summer — a time when the germ is best suited for colonization.

E. coli O157:H7 lives in the intestines of cattle without harming them. During the slaughter process, the microbes can land on meat cuts and survive inside the center of  a hamburger if not cooked to 160 degrees. Once ingested by a human, the pathogen emits large quantities of a potent toxin that severely damage the lining of the intestine.

In 5 percent to 15 percent of cases, a victim of infection develops a complication known as hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), which can be life threatening and has long-term negative health consequences for its victims.

The Times story said development of E. coli O157:H7 vaccines would be further along by now, but there was an 18-month delay in the approval process while the Food and Drug Administration and the Agriculture Department clashed over whose job it was to handle the approvals.

The need has become more urgent as the number of ground beef E. coli recalls has grown to 52 since January 2007. In the preceding three years, there were 20 ground beef recalls.

Even if the two vaccines gain full approval (the Canadian vaccine has yet to receive preliminary approval), any chance of an impact depends on whether enough ranchers and farmers embrace the technology — which could cost $10 per animal, or more. The story quoted one rancher as saying the current profit margin on a single animal is only $25 to $35.

National food safety law firm Pritzker Olsen Attorneys will be monitoring the vaccines as they progress. We currently represent E. coli  HUS victims and we are one of the few law firms in the country practicing extensively in the area of foodborne illness litigation. Contact our firm at 1-888-377-8900 (Toll Free) for a free case consultation. You may also complete our online contact and information form on the side of this page.

That’s the report in a ground beef recall notice published Tuesday by USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS). The agency detected E. coli O157:H7 in the meat, which was packaged in 10-pound packages of “bulk fresh ground beef.”

The recalled meet is marked with USDA establishment number EST 5726 inside the USDA mark of inspection. The ground beef E. coli recall notice from FSIS said no illnesses have been reported in connection with the recalled product.

Anyone with E. coli O157:H7 symptoms should see a physician immediately. To review your legal rights, call an E. coli lawyer at Pritzker Olsen Attorneys, 1-888-377-8900 (Toll Free) or complete one of our online contact and information forms. Our firm will provide you with a free case consultation.

According to the suit filed late last week in Plymouth Superior Court, Rhode Island Lincoln Middle School student Lynne Santos was one of more than 30 students and chaperones who were sickened after eating a meal of hamburgers during their school trip to Bournedale. The Santos child fell severely ill and was hospitalized for four days, according to the suit.

It is the second Lincoln Middle School E. coli lawsuit filed against the ground beef maker, South Shore Meats of Brockton, Massachusetts. As part of the public health investigation into the outbreak, investigators tested leftover hamburger meat from Camp Bournedale and found it contaminated with E. coli O157:H7. South Shore Meats and the USDA’s Food Safety an Inspection Service announced a recall of more than 1,000 pounds of the ground beef, which was mostly sold to commercial kitchens in New England.

The owner of Camp Bournedale has said since the outbreak that camp cooks will never again prepare hamburgers for visitors from fresh ground beef, which is a common vehicle of transmission for E. coli O157:H7. Nationwide, there have been 18 ground beef E. coli outbreaks since 2007, all resulting in lawsuits. The most recent came just after the Camp Bournedale illnesses. The multi-state Fairbank Farms E. coli outbreak has sickened at least 25 people in 10 states, killing two and causing at least three cases of E. coli HUS, or hemolytic uremic syndrome, a life-threatening complication of E. coli infection.