U.S. Proposes End to Testing for Salmonella in School Beef

[Susan Gawarecki <loc@ICX.NET>]

U.S. Proposes End to Testing for Salmonella in School Beef

By MARIAN BURROS, New York Times

Full story at http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/05/education/05MEAT.html



The Bush administration has proposed dropping testing for salmonella in

ground beef for the federal school-lunch program and letting schools

serve beef that has been irradiated, a procedure that kills salmonella

and all other harmful bacteria but is mistrusted by many consumers. 



The salmonella tests, ordered last June by the Clinton administration,

were met with fierce opposition by the meat industry, which complained

that the tests were burdensome and not scientific. The industry has

since lobbied to scrap them. In those tests, packages of meat were

sampled randomly by the government for salmonella before shipment to

schools. 



<snip>



Dr. Clayton said he had no idea how many companies would choose to

irradiate their ground beef. Critics of irradiation say it is the easy

way to sterilize harmful bacteria but does nothing to improve the safety

of the meat processor. It would be up to the schools to notify parents

if they planned to serve irradiated hamburgers. 



Irradiation shatters the genetic material of bacteria, killing them.

Scientists say the process leaves no residual radioactivity. The

government began allowing beef to be irradiated a year ago, but

relatively little has been produced, in part because of doubts about

whether most consumers would accept it.



Mishandling of food, even if it has been irradiated or previously tested

as untainted, can introduce harmful bacteria. And improperly handled raw

beef can cross-contaminate raw food with which it comes in contact.



Salmonella causes 1.4 million illnesses and 600 deaths a year, according

to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While testing for

salmonella would be eliminated, the Agriculture Department would

continue its daily testing for E coli 0157H:7, except in products that

had been irradiated.



<snip>



The meat processors have lobbied hard to get rid of the salmonella

testing. Sara Lilygren, a spokeswoman for the American Meat Institute,

said: "The draft proposal appears to be an improvement for consumers

because it allows irradiated ground beef to be purchased, uses generic

e-coli testing to determine whether the product has been produced in a

clean and controlled environment and abandons the old zero tolerance for

salmonella, which had no basis for reducing food-borne illness risk

since it was in a product required to be cooked to 160 degrees but

caused millions of pounds of good meat to be rejected and jacked up the

cost of ground beef."



The salmonella tests added to the cost of ground beef. Irradiation is

expected to do the same, but it is not known by how much.



Until the Clinton administration adopted the science-based

specifications last year, the only safety requirement for school-lunch

ground beef was that it be produced in an Agriculture

Department-certified processing plant. 



Those specifications were enacted after a federal judge rebuffed the

department's efforts last summer to close a Texas meat-processing plant

based on random salmonella tests the department had conducted. The plant

supplied as much as 45 percent of the ground beef in the school-lunch

program after it failed salmonella tests three times. But the judge said

the department lacked the authority to use such tests, and ordered that

the plant remain open. It closed later last year, however, after the

department decided to appeal the judge's ruling.



Since the rules became effective, salmonella contamination has dropped

by as much as 50 percent, studies show.



<snip>

-- 

.....................................................

Susan L. Gawarecki, Ph.D., Executive Director

Oak Ridge Reservation Local Oversight Committee

                       -----                       

A schedule of meetings on DOE issues is posted on our Web site

http://www.local-oversight.org/meetings.html - E-mail loc@icx.net

.....................................................

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