The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently issued a report finding that the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) did not adequately evaluate the impact of proposed poultry and hog inspection changes that would replace some USDA inspectors on slaughter lines with plant personnel tasked with ensuring quality and safety standards. According to the report, USDA implemented several pilot projects at poultry and hog processing plants over the past decade but ultimately failed to gather enough data to assess the effectiveness of these new systems. Nevertheless, the agency has since proposed an optional inspection scheme for both poultry and hog operations “based on its experience with the pilot projects at young chicken and young turkey plants.” Asked to review these pilot projects by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), GAO determined that the proposed changes would give production plants more flexibility and responsibility while allowing inspectors to focus…
Tag Archives E. coli
U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) has sent an August 23, 2013, letter to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Under Secretary for Food Safety Elisabeth Hagen about “the ongoing problems with the Public Health Information System (PHIS) used by the Food Safety [and] Inspection Service (FSIS).” Citing reports that PHIS recently experienced a system-wide shutdown that lasted three days and allowed “millions of pounds of meat products” to leave processing plants without being tested for E. coli, DeLauro has asked USDA to provide a record of similar major incidents as well as an “analysis of the problems with the system, the impact on food safety and steps being taken to remedy these problems, including those related to software and connectivity.” She has also asked for details about the parameters of the PHIS contract “that ensure long-term solutions are made to issues that arise in the system,” in addition to “the metrics…
A recent New York Times report has claimed that the failure of a new computer system used by meatpacking and processing plant inspectors did not stop untested shipments of beef, poultry, pork, and lamb from reaching consumers. According to an August 17, 2013, article by Ron Nixon, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) acknowledged the August 8, 2013, system failure but “played down the threat to public safety and insisted that the breakdown of the $20-million computer system had not compromised the nation’s meat supply.” Designed to speed up the inspection process, which involves sending meat samples to laboratories to test for E. coli and other contaminants, the new computer system is an important piece of USDA’s plan “to provide real-time information about the conditions at meat processing plants and make it easy for the agency to track food safety problems before they led to outbreaks.” But Nixon notes that…
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) recently published its recommendations for improving meat inspection procedures in the European Union (EU) after a previous assessment found that “traditional practices... are not always suitable for detecting the main meat borne hazards such as Campylobacter and Salmonella or contamination by chemical substances.” Billed as “a major piece of work that will provide the scientific basis for the modernization of meat inspection across the EU,” the four new opinions address the potential public health risks of meat derived from solipeds, farmed game, sheep, goats, and cows, in addition to setting “harmonized epidemiological indicators” for identifying biological hazards. Looking at data on the incidence and severity of foodborne diseases in humans as well as the outcomes of various residue testing programs, EFSA’s experts ranked the biological and chemical hazards of particular concern for each species, singling out verocytotoxin-producing E. coli, dioxins and dioxin-like polychlorinated biphenyls as…
A U.S. Department of Agriculture Office of Inspector General audit report titled “FSIS E. coli Testing of Boxed Beef” concludes that the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) must reevaluate its E. coli testing methodology and “take additional steps to ensure that beef to be ground throughout the production process—from Federally inspected slaughter establishments to local grocery stores—be subject to FSIS sampling and testing for E. coli.” According to the report, “FSIS is not testing tenderized meat products for E. coli despite several recent recalls.” The Kansas City Star noted that the report was issued three months after the newspaper published a series of stories profiling individuals who had apparently been sickened with E. coli poisoning after consuming medium-rare, mechanically tenderized steaks in restaurants. The article highlighted that “the process of mechanically blading that meat uses automated needles or knives to tenderize tougher cuts of beef, forcing pathogens into the…
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued a report titled “Attribution of Foodborne Illness, Hospitalizations, and Deaths to Food Commodities by using Outbreak Data, United States, 1998-2008,” based on data involving 17 food categories and the roughly 48 million people who “get sick from food eaten in the United States” each year. While produce is evidently responsible for more food-borne illness (46 percent) than other food categories, meat and poultry apparently cause more death (29 percent) and dairy “accounted for the most hospitalizations” (16 percent). CDC’s estimates are based on the 4,589 foodborne disease outbreaks reported over an 11-year span. The report cautions that the findings should not cause people to “avoid certain categories of food,” because many food-borne bacteria can be killed by cooking to proper temperatures and a varied diet is important to a healthy lifestyle. Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) Food…
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) has announced that, as of February 8, 2013, it will require producers of non-intact raw beef and all ready-to-eat products containing meat and poultry to hold shipments until they pass agency testing for foodborne pathogens. FSIS announced its plan to implement this policy in April 2011. In the past, FSIS’s practice has apparently been “to allow products tested for adulterants to bear the mark of inspection, and to enter commerce, even when test results have not been received.” FSIS had asked, but not required, official establishments to maintain control of products tested for adulterants pending test results. According to FSIS, “because establishments, including official import inspection establishments, were not consistently maintaining control of product, despite FSIS’s request that they do so, adulterated product was entering commerce.” FSIS has reportedly stated that if the new requirement had been in place…
The First Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a jury verdict tracing the source of E. coli-contaminated beef to Greater Omaha Packing Co. thus sustaining a third-party indemnification claim against it. Long v. Fairbank Reconstruction Corp. v. Greater Omaha Packing Co., No. 12-1412 (1st Cir., decided November 21, 2012). Two Maine residents sickened in the outbreak settled for $500,000 with Fairbank Reconstruction, which had purchased the meat from Greater Omaha and further processed it for sale in retail-sized packages by grocery stores. Fairbank sought indemnification from Greater Omaha, and the trial focused for the most part “on the ‘traceback’ analyses that led Fairbank’s experts to conclude that the contaminated meat could only have come from the [Greater Omaha] combos and not from another supplier’s product.” The court found that “ample evidence” supported the jury’s conclusion that Greater Omaha was the source of the E. coli contamination that sickened the two…
Two British Columbia residents have reportedly filed individual and putative class action suits against the Canadian meat processor that was forced to recall 1,800 ground beef products in an E. coli contamination outbreak that involved retail chains in the United States and Canada. The class action, filed October 12, 2012, by Erin Thornton in B.C. Supreme Court, names XL Foods Inc. and its owner Nilsson Bros., Inc. as defendants. She alleges that XL Foods was negligent and that both defendants breached disclosure obligations and mishandled the recall. According to news sources, at least 15 people in four provinces have been sickened by the E. coli strain linked to the defendants’ Brooks, Alberta-based plant. Class actions have also apparently been filed in other provinces. U.S. officials reportedly discovered E. coli O157 at the plant on September 3, and the recall began September 16. See The Canadian Press and The Province, October 17,…
An Edmonton, Alberta, resident has filed a putative class action against a beef processor with operations in Alberta and Nebraska, alleging that he became severely ill from consuming the company’s beef, which was recalled in September 2012 due to an E. coli outbreak. Harrison v. XL Foods Inc., No. 1203-14727 (Can. Alta. Q.B., filed October 2, 2012). Seeking to certify province-wide and nationwide classes of plaintiffs “who purchased and/or consumed the Recalled Products,” the plaintiff alleges strict liability, breach of the Fair Trading Act, negligence, waiver of tort/disgorgement, and vicarious liability. He requests punitive and actual damages, as well as non-pecuniary general damages, pecuniary damages, disgorgement of revenues, attorney’s fees, costs, and interest. He also seeks a declaration that the recalled products are contaminated. According to news sources, plaintiff Matthew Harrison fell ill after eating allegedly contaminated steak, purchased at a Costco store, at a friend’s house. He was purportedly…
