In the News: Beef Safety & E. coli

Walmart recently announced that it will implement additional beef safety measures designed to further protect their customers against foodborne illnesses. The new process controls standards and goals are additions to a food safety program that already requires ground beef suppliers to test for E.coli O157:H7 and achieve prevention-based certification against one of the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) internationally recognized standards.

“In light of recent beef recalls, we determined it was prudent to require an additional layer of protection for our customers,” said Vice President for Food Safety Frank Yiannas.

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In other E. coli news, Food Safety News reported on May 3, 2010 that investigators were slow to name the E.coli strain source in the latest outbreak. The outbreak appears to have claimed victims in three states, New York, Ohio, and Michigan. Public health officials in those states say laboratory work has confirmed 15 cases with another 32 suspected.

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What are your thoughts... should more grocery stores take Walmart's lead and require food safety measures? Are authorities working quickly enough when outbreaks occur?

Foodborne Illnesses in U.S. Cost $152B Annually

An article today in Business Week by Steven Reinberg states that foodborne illnesses cost the United States an estimated $152 billion each year in health-related expenses.

"These costs are significantly more than previous official estimates, and it demonstrates the serious burden that food-borne illness places on society," Sandra Eskin, director of the Food Safety Campaign at the Pew Charitable Trusts in Washington, D.C., said during a Tuesday press conference.

These health-related costs include physician services, hospital services, medicines and also quality-of-life losses, such as deaths, pain, suffering and disability.

According to federal statistics, it is estimated that each year 76 million Americans are sickened by contaminated food, with 5,000 of these illnesses becoming fatal.

Illnesses from well recognized pathogens play the largest role. For example, costs related to campylobacter exceed $18.8 billion annually; costs linked to salmonella are estimated at $14.6 billion; and costs related to listeria are $8.8 billion, according to the report.

And the majority of these foodborne illnesses are caused by produce, which are regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Thirty-nine percent of E. coli outbreaks were due to produce regulated by the FDA.

It is hoped that the report will spur Congress to pass food safety legislation to strengthen the FDA's food safety efforts and give the agency more authority over the foods it regulates and more funding to make the food supply safer.

Please click here to read the full article.

Fed food safety budgets may increase, but not enough?

According to an article published in Food Engineering February 12, 2010 the upcoming increase in spending by the FDA will not be enough for food safety budgets. Here is the article:

While many federal agencies are facing a freeze in discretionary spending in the next budget, FDA is a notable exception. FDA's budget could actually grow by as much as 23 percent, with much of the new spending focused on food safety.

If Congress approves, it will be food manufacturers who pay for much of the increase in higher user fees. The fees, which would also be paid by generic drug makers, are a big part of the FDA's expanded food safety mandate. It entails more inspections and improved data collection. Under the FDA's proposed budget, the agency's staff could also grow by 10 percent.

Meanwhile, USDA's proposed budget allocation is $149 billion in the coming fiscal year, with discretionary spending down 18 percent over 2009 spending levels. Entitlement spending, however, is up 28 percent. More than 70 percent of USDA's entire budget would pay for nutrition assistance programs.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) praised the proposed increase for FDA but noted funding for USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service remains essentially frozen with what she termed a “miniscule” 1.9 percent increase.

“The FSIS is responsible for front-line inspections and recalls, and will be stretched beyond its capacity by the growing population of our country and the resulting increase in food consumption,” DeLauro said in a statement. “FSIS should be given the resources to perform the critical food safety activities that comprise USDA’s public health mission area.”

What are your thoughts? Is the increased spending and focus on food safety enough to combat recent outbreaks and promote food safety initiatives? How can the FSIS keep up on front-line inspections without a larger budget increase?

Latest in USA Beef Happenings

There has been a lot of press lately involving the beef industry. I want to use this week’s blog to touch on three different articles concerning meat safety that have been published in recent weeks.

First, in the Meat Trade News, an article published on January 5th states that in the food safety world it is “now open season for anyone to attack meat trade” and states that there is no letup in the calls from politicians, consumer advocates, food safety lawyers and major media outlets for USDA and the food industry to step up their game when it comes to food safety.

A recent incident that has sparked public debate is the National Steak and Poultry's Christmas Eve voluntary recall of 248,000 pounds of mechanically tenderized beef products on E. coli O157:H7 concerns. With 21 people sickened and 9 hospitalized, food safety lawyer Fred Pritzker issued a news release calling for the National Steak and Poultry to pay medical bills and lost wages for the victims of illness associated with the recall.

With this fallout, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) has also called for labels identifying mechanically tenderized beef and pork products, a move the American Meat Institute said is not necessary.

Read the full article by clicking here

The second article is from the Washington Post dated December 30, 2009 and goes into more detail on the beef recall and those sickened. The recall is considered a "class 1" or a "high health risk" by the USDA, which regulates the meat industry, since E. coli O157:H7 is one of the most lethal foodborne pathogens. Even for those who survive, there can be long-term health effects. The contamination appears to have begun with tainted beef used for chopped steak that was "co-mingled" with other products in the plant. Cases have been identified in six states -- Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, South Dakota and Washington

The outbreak is considered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to be relatively small, but it is significant because it is at least the fourth associated with mechanically tenderized beef since 2000.

To read more by clicking here

And finally in another blow to the beef industry, the AFP reported on December 29, 2009 that the United States expressed dismay over Taiwan's move to resume a ban on certain US beef imports amid concerns over mad cow disease. Taiwanese lawmakers agreed to amend a law on food health to ban imports of cow organs, minced beef and other high-risk items such as spines and eyes. "The proposed amendment’s provisions do not have a basis in science or fact and thus in no way serve to protect Taiwan’s food supply," said a joint statement by the United States Trade Representative office and the Department of Agriculture. "If passed, this amendment would represent a new barrier to US beef exports to Taiwan, and would constitute a unilateral abrogation of a bilateral agreement concluded in good faith by the United States with Taiwan just two months ago.”

To read the article in its entirety by clicking here