Checking all food impossible, experts say
WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP) - No
matter how sophisticated government
testing of meat and poultry becomes,
the sheer volume produced in
America may make it impossible to
detect all dangerous bacteria in food,
inspectors say.
“There is probably no way to
absolutely foolproof this process,”
Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman
said.
For example, the Hudson Foods
Co. ground beef plant in Nebraska,
shut down last week during a federal
probe into E. coli contamination, had
been producing up to three million
pounds of frozen hamburger every
week. That’s 12 million quarter
pound patties.
Agriculture Department inspec
tors go to slaughterhouses that supply
Hudson. But it is not practical to test
all that meat for E. coli, salmonella or
other bacteria that can make people
sick, officials say.
And health risks in the meat
industry can start well before the cat
tle rearh slancrhterhmicec
Agriculture experts told U.S.
News & World Report that farmers
often add waste substances to live
stock and poultry feed. Chicken
manure, which is cheaper than alfal
fa, is increasingly used as feed by cat
tle farmers despite possible health
risks to consumers, says the magazine
reaching newsstands today.
“Feeding manure that has not
been properly processed is super
charging the cattle feces with
pathogens likely to cause disease in
consumers,” Dr. Neal Barnard, head
of the Washington-based health
lobby, Physicians for Responsible
Medicine, told the magazine.
This can make the Agriculture
Department meat inspectors’job
even harder.
Tight budgets at the agency just
exacerbate the problem. The number
of inspectors at the agency’s Food
I
Safety and Inspection Service has
fallen from about 12,000 in 1978 to
7,500 today - to cover the 6,500 pri
vate meat and poultry plants around
the country.
The Hudson situation has shaken
some Americans’ confidence, a new
Newsweek poll found; 54 percent of
respondents said they are less likely
to buy burgers at fast-food restau
rants, and 41 percent said they are
less likely to buy hamburger meat at
grocery stores.
Burger King announced Saturday
that it no longer would buy ground
beef from Hudson’s Columbus, Neb.,
plant. A statement by Hudson called
it “a serious disappointment” because
Burger King had been a major pur
chaser.
According to the Newsweek poll,
62 percent of respondents said the
government should spend more
money on food inspection to ensure
that U.S.-produced food is safe, with
an even division over whether the
government is already doing a good
jvv. iiiv/iug. jui yvjr vi jvi uuuuo,
appearing in the magazine today, has
a five percentage point margin of
error.
Pathogens such as E. coli remain a
health problem in America. The fed
eral Centers for Disease Control esti
mates that up to 9,800 E. coli cases
and 120,000 salmonella cases per
year occur when people don’t suffi
ciently cook ground beef containing
the bacteria. Cooking at high-enough
temperatures will kill the germs.
Together, the microbes cost
upwards of $500 million a year in
medical bills and lost productivity,
according to a USDA estimate.
The first meat inspection laws
date back to 1906, in the wake of
books such as Upton Sinclair’s “The
Jungle” that exposed the once-filthy
conditions in the packing industry.
Under those laws, which have
remained essentially unchanged for
90 years, USD A inspectors worked
inside private meat and poultry plants
nationwide. They examined sample
carcasses and products by sight,
smell and touch, trying to determine
if the product was safe and whole
some.
But the federal rules never
required scientific tests for bacteria
like E. coli. Some larger companies
did it anyway, while smaller ones test
ed only if customers had specific
requirements. ,
Now, new inspection rules are
being phased in by the year 2000 that
for the first time require some scien
tific testing for bacteria at all meat
and poultry processing plants. In the
case of E. coli, all plants regardless of
size had to begin their own testing last
Jan. 27.
Even that will involve only sam
ples taken once or twice a day from
plants that can move tens of thou
sands of pounds of meat a day.
Still, Glickman said the focus will
be on critical points in plants where
contamination is likely. In the case of
E. coli. animal fecal matter is the
most frequent source, so tests will be
done at points along the chain where
its presence is prevalent, such as after
cattle are slaughtered, when the meat
is cut into large pieces for various
uses.
“Hopefully you’ll be able to dis
cover problems much earlier in the
process,” Glickman said.
Such scientific testing generally
involves taking a sample from meat,
putting it in a lab dish and testing it
chemically to see if harmful bacteria
are present.
At Hudson, company officials
agreed to recall all the beef processed
at the plant since the date of contami
nation - up to 25 million pounds —
and to shut down the plant until
stronger safety recommendations
were met. There was no indication
when the plant might reopen.
Company founder James T.
Hudson said the Nebraska plant had
done 57 E. coli tests of its own since
the beginning of 1997. All were nega
tive.
The source of contamination for
Hudson beef patties processed during
three days in early June has not been
found. But government and company
officials say it likely came from a
slaughterhouse supplier outside the
plant.
Thus, Hudson said the company
will now do E. coli testing on the
meat arriving from slaughterhouses.
“We’re going to start inspecting
every lot that comes in, rather than
just depending on the supplier,” he
said. “We’re going to visit with some
of our suppliers and make sure we’re
comfortable with their testing.”
The new federal rules also require
companies to keep much better
records of their testing and monitor
ing to enable officials to trace the
source of any contamination that does
occur.
But in Hudson’s case, the medi
um-sized Nebraska plant won’t have
to comply fully with the rules until
January 1999. Federal inspectors said
this week they were investigating
whether Hudson’s record-keeping
had been lacking.
Correction
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