The following article is interesting, and at some point it may have an affect on the super-bio-rat, the one that has a tie-in with TRIB. The key is fast test results, factory floor so to speak. xtrana.com
(by the by, when I was in England & Ireland in Sept. the TRIB hq was one of my stops, and with that info you can see on the chart when the wife started serious accumulation)
U.S. Meat Inspector Draws Fire
For Hard Line on Food Safety
By LEILA ABBOUD
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
WASHINGTON -- Garry McKee's first experience with the E. coli bacteria was as a state public-health official tracking down a 1998 outbreak in Alpine, Wyo., that sickened 157 people. Its source: deer and elk feces that seeped into the aquifer supplying the town's drinking water.
Now, Mr. McKee is the nation's chief meat inspector. The 30-year veteran public-health officer sees his mission clearly: tracking bugs such as E. coli, listeria, and salmonella to their source and insisting that slaughterhouses and meat-processing facilities eradicate them.
The meat industry sees the job differently. It expects the administrator of the Agriculture Department's Food Safety and Inspection Service to assure that plants follow good practice in slaughtering, sanitation and labeling -- but also to recognize that bacteria are inevitable.
"There needs to be a recognition that zero-tolerance level of pathogens in raw product is not a scientifically achievable objective," said Rosemary Mucklow, head of the National Meat Association.
If the meat industry expected the Bush administration to pick a business-friendly regulator, it was wrong.
In October, just two months into his new job, Mr. McKee stunned an American Meat Institute audience with a blunt message: "If a meat or poultry company is just doing the absolute minimum, then it is failing its responsibility to the public," he said, asserting that too many plants focus on recalling products once they detect a problem. "If you have a testing program and are getting positives, then you are doing something wrong. Your system is broken, and it needs to be repaired."
The meat industry wasn't pleased. "If you are a public-health expert, then you'd think that you would focus on the public-health outcomes, which have all been improving," grouses one meat association spokesman. "Every year we see bacteria levels drop and food-borne illness associated with meat products declining. From our point of view, everything keeps moving in the right direction."
The chief meat inspector's job is getting a lot more attention lately because of two headline-making meat recalls, the largest in history in terms of weight. One was of poultry from a Pennsylvania plant linked to a listeria outbreak, and the other was of tainted ground beef from a ConAgra Foods Inc. plant in Colorado. At least eight deaths and three miscarriages have been attributed to the two episodes.
Mr. McKee says these "recent events repeatedly underscore the need to focus on prevention," not recalls, which have more than doubled since 1998 and which he considers "a failure in the system, not a cure or solution."
Mr. McKee, a Ph.D. microbiologist whose previous job was running Wyoming's health department, and his boss, Elsa Murano, undersecretary of agriculture for food safety, are backing up the tough talk with actions that are drawing industry criticism. A new policy on listeria, a bug that thrives in refrigeration and can cause miscarriages and death, has been particularly contentious. Two weeks ago, the inspection service urged producers of high-risk products, such as hot dogs and deli meat, to test plants for listeria and share results with the government. Producers that don't test for the bug will be subject to government tests. Previously, the agency only tested finished product.
BATTLING THE BUGS
Garry McKee, the new top federal meat inspector, is drawing fire from the industry.
Number of federal meat inspectors: 7,600
Number of U.S. slaughter and processing plants: 6,500
Annual spending on meat, poultry and eggs regulated by FSIS: $120 billion
Fiscal-year 2002 FSIS budget: $892 million
Number of deaths from food-borne illness annually: 5,000
Known affected by tainted ConAgra ground beef this summer: 38 sick, one dead
Known affected by listeria outbreak this fall: 53 sick, 8 dead, 3 miscarriages
Sources: Food Safety and Inspection Service; Centers for Disease Control
The industry mounted an unsuccessful lobbying push against the guidelines. At an Agriculture Department scientific meeting that drew 250 people, industry representatives maintained that listeria, which comes from soil, is common in even the cleanest plants, and doesn't always pose a food-safety threat. Calling the new policy a "regulatory nightmare," Alice Johnson, of the National Turkey Federation, said the government would discourage plants from testing for listeria by punishing those who find it. Companies want the government to continue to leave plant-testing decisions to them.
The Food Safety and Inspection Service, with its army of 7,600 inspectors, has long been torn between meat processors, for whom it administers the familiar USDA seal of inspection, and the meat-eating public, whose health it protects. Until the 1990s, few at the service saw it as a public-health agency. That changed after a deadly 1993 E. coli outbreak at a Jack in the Box fast-food restaurant that catapulted food-borne illness into the national debate. The Clinton administration made reform of the meat-inspection system a priority. It appointed a Food and Drug Administration lawyer to head an agency traditionally run by veterinarians.
In 1996 the agency adopted Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points. Instead of relying on government inspectors doing carcass-by-carcass "poke and sniff" tests, HACCP required plants to implement preventive plans to reduce bacteria. The government then checked the plans' effectiveness with tests at the end of the line for salmonella.
Consumer groups initially supported the new system, but soon soured on it, complaining that it relied too much on the industry to police itself. The industry liked the self-policing, but not the salmonella tests -- and won a 2001 ruling from a federal appeals court in Texas that the Agriculture Department lacked authority to shut plants that failed the salmonella tests. The Bush administration decided not to appeal, alarming consumer groups.
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But in his October speech, Mr. McKee said his agency would put more teeth into HACCP. On Friday, the nation's largest meat processors will be required to control for E. coli (or show that such control plans aren't needed) and to prove to federal inspectors that their plans work.
The inspection service is also cracking down on plants with persistent problems: In mid-November it temporarily shut the ConAgra Foods slaughterhouse at the center of this summer's 18-million-pound beef recall for repeated violations of the zero-tolerance rule for fecal contamination. That plant now is owned by Swift & Co. The agency's action followed criticism in August from the congressional General Accounting Office that the agency had allowed plants to keep shipping meat even after repeated major violations.
Mike Taylor, the Clinton administration food-inspection chief who devised HACCP, praises Mr. McKee's zeal. "He is doing exactly what he ought to be doing and saying exactly what he ought to be saying."
Mr. McKee -- who admits he hasn't visited a slaughterhouse for at least 10 years, but promises to tour one soon -- shrugs off industry complaints. "When you do a good job of protecting the public health and regulating an industry, you are going to have detractors on both sides," he said in an interview.
And he does eat meat: His favorite steak is a 10-oz. filet mignon, cooked medium. |
