|
Open Letter to a New Under-Secretary for Food Safety
– FSIS Source of Article: http://www.marlerblog.com/ E. coli is a powerful and deadly bacterium. You cannot see it, taste
it, or smell it. 250,000 E. coli bacteria will fit on the head of a
pin. Ten to 50 will kill your child or your grandmother. Most
likely due the expertise of Children’s Hospitals,
and other top medical centers around the country, deaths at times are
avoided, however, often not before Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome (HUS) nearly
kills. HUS, a complication from an E. coli infection, can cause severe
damage to kidneys, intestines, liver and pancreas. Falling into a coma
and suffering further from cognitive impairment are all too common. I have seen the inside of too many of those Intensive Care Units with
families who are scared senseless as they watch their child or mother
shutdown. For 16 years, this has been my world. When I was
an undergraduate, I read Upton Sinclair’s, The Jungle. That book took
the American public on a tour of the contaminated underbelly of the meat
industry and they were sickened. It led to the Pure Food & Drug Act
and the Federal Meat Inspection Act, versions of which are still in place
today. Until 1993, I thought—because of those laws—that the Although, the presence of some E. coli in hamburger was defined as an
adulterant under the Federal Meat Inspection Act, I continued to sue “Big
Meat” as most of my clients up to 2002 were children who were made sick by
eating E. coli contaminated meat. I recovered over $350 million during
this period from the meat industry and the restaurants they supplied in
verdicts and settlements on behalf of those clients. In 2003 recalls of
meat laced with E. coli began to decline. After 24 million pounds of
contaminated beef were recalled in 34 separate incidents in 2002, recalls
dropped off to just over a million pounds a year for the next three years,
and then to just 181,900 pounds in 2006. The Centers of Disease Control
and Prevention saw E. coli – related illnesses drop 48% between 2002 and
2006. But then came Spring 2007. E. coli, which begins its life in the
hindgut of a cow, mounted a surge on its home court. And, it came back
with a vengeance. Forty-four million pounds of beef have been recalled
in 25 incidents. All over the country, slaughterhouses, packing and
distribution centers, retail outlets, and
restaurants were once again testing positive for E. coli and people-mostly
children-were getting seriously sick. The American meat supply, which
had again been touted as safest in the world, tumbled back into
disarray. But, why? As with any unexplained mystery, theories abound. Could it really
just be meat industry complacency? Did everyone respond to the good
numbers in 2006 by taking a long nap? Did meat processors slack
off—consciously or unconsciously—and relax their testing procedures?
Did government regulators take a few years off? Or could it be better reporting? Doctors are more aware of E. coli
now, and perhaps when patients present symptoms of food poisoning; tests are
more likely to be ordered. When the presence of E coli is found and
reported, a recall is triggered. There’s always global warming. Seriously though – very smart people
have posited that droughts in the southeast and southwest have launched more
fecal dust into the air, which then finds its way into beef slaughtering
plants. It has also been suggested that the rainfall in other areas
created muddy pens—an ideal environment for E. coli. Why not blame high oil prices? High prices have fueled the growth of
ethanol plants. These plants are often built next to feedlots, and a
byproduct of the ethanol production process—distiller’s grains—is considered
an excellent and cheap alternative to corn for cattle feed. Unfortunately,
research associates the use of distiller’s grains as feed with an increase in
the incidence of E. coli in the hindguts of cattle. Another controversial issue may affect the meat supply. The New York
Times reported that immigration officials began a crackdown at
slaughterhouses across the country in the fall of 2006.
Experienced—albeit undocumented—workers have been cleared out and replaced
with unskilled, inexperienced labor. And then there’s What is being done? Honestly, not much. Congress has held some
hearings, but the only new reform is that the names of retail stores that
received meat and poultry involved in recalls with high health risk will be
made public. Good as far as it goes. However, despite 76,000,000 American’s being
sickened, 325,000 hospitalized and 5,000 deaths each year, food safety did
not make it as a Presidential campaign issue. Congress, Democrats and
Republicans, have about run out its clock. But E. coli is back in our
meat and we better care. Solutions? Improve surveillance of bacterial and viral diseases.
First responders - ER physicians and local doctors - need to be encouraged to
test for pathogens and report findings directly to local and state health
departments and the CDC promptly. Right now, for every person counted in an
outbreak there are some 20 to 40 times those that are sick but never tested.
The more we test, the quicker we know we have an outbreak and the quicker it
can be stopped. These same governmental departments, whether local, state or federal, need
to learn to “play well together.” Turf battles need to take a back seat to
stopping an outbreak and tracking it to its source. That means resources need
to be provided and coordination encouraged so illnesses can be promptly
stopped and the offending producer - not an entire industry - are brought to
heal. Require real training and certification of food handlers at restaurants
and grocery stores. There also should be incentives for ill employees not to
come to work when ill. We should impose fines and penalties on employers who
do not cooperate. Stiffen license requirements for large farm, retail and wholesale food
outlets, so that nobody gets a license until they and their employees have
shown they understand the hazards and how to avoid them. Increase food inspections. While domestic production has continued to be a
problem, imports pose an increasing risk, especially if terrorists were to
get into the act. Points of export and entry are a logical place to step up
monitoring. We need more inspectors - domestically and abroad - and we need
to require that they receive the training in how to identify and control
hazards. Reorganize federal, state and local food safety agencies to increase
cooperation and reduce wasteful overlap and conflicts. Reform federal, state
and local agencies to make them more proactive, and less reactive. This too
requires financial resources and accountability. We also need to modernize
food safety statutes by replacing the existing collection of often
conflicting laws and regulation with one uniform food safety law of the
highest standard. There are too few legal consequences for sickening or killing customers by
selling contaminated food. We should impose stiff fines, and even prison
sentences for violators, and even stiffer penalties
for repeat violators. We need to use our technology to make food more traceable so that when an
outbreak occurs authorities can quickly identify the source and limit the
spread of the contamination and stop the disruption to the economy. When I
buy a book on line I can track it all the way to my mailbox. We must be
able to do the same with our food. Promote university research to develop better technologies to make food
safe and for testing foods for contamination. Provide tax breaks for
companies that push food safety interventions and employee training. Greatly
expand irradiation of raw hamburger and other high-risk products. Improve consumer understanding of the risks of food-borne illness. Foster
a popular campaign similar to Mothers Against Drunk Driving, which uses
consumer power to promote a no-tolerance policy toward growers and companies
that produce tainted food. The time has come to act and not continue simply to react.
Consumers, Farmers, Suppliers, Manufacturers, Retailers, Regulators and
Politicians need to work together to make our food supply safe, profitable
and sustainable. When a quarter of our population is sickened yearly by
contaminated food, when thousands die, we do not have the “safest food supply
in the world. We should, must and can do better.
|
Copyright (C) All rights reserved under FoodHACCP.com
If you have any comments, please send your email to info@foodhaccp.com
