Clinton Plans Tighter Rules on Meat Safety

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy announced Tuesday that the Clinton Administration is preparing new initiatives to prevent the kind of food-borne bacterial poisoning that has claimed two lives and left hundreds ill in the West.

Espy told government officials that he will present recommendations to a U.S. Senate subcommittee as early as Friday on ways to strengthen the department’s food safety efforts, though he declined to specify what the recommendations would be.

He was responding to a still-spreading epidemic of E. coli 00157: H7 bacterial poisoning that has been traced in most cases to the sale of undercooked hamburgers at Jack in the Box restaurants in Washington state and other Western outlets. More than 350 people have been stricken with food poisoning symptoms, including more than 20 children who remain hospitalized and two who have died in Washington state.

Espy met with Washington Gov. Mike Lowry and testified before state lawmakers, defending the U.S. Department of Agriculture inspection system. But he added that simply following the letter of the law was “in my opinion, not enough.”

Meat inspectors’ visual inspections cannot detect bacteria contamination in ground meat, and the sale of such meat is legal because of the assumption that proper storage and handling will retard the growth of the organisms, and high enough cooking temperatures will kill them.

Traveling with Espy, Russell Cross, head of the department’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, told reporters and state lawmakers that new Administration initiatives could be “fairly drastic . . . things unheard of six months ago.”

Meanwhile, evidence mounted that the E. coli 00157: H7 is more prevalent than previously thought.

According to a U.S. Food and Drug Administration memorandum sent to the agency’s regional offices last week, the bacteria is now said to be present in 3% of the raw ground beef collected at supermarket counters by researchers--a rate six times higher than the estimate of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The memo recommended that all ground beef products be stored, handled and cooked as if contaminated with the virulent strain. This would mean a minimum cooking temperature of 155 degrees, resulting in well done hamburger.

The apparent disparity between the agencies’ estimates could be explained by the fact that the 3% contamination rate was found at supermarkets and the 0.5% level was found at slaughter and processing plants. Once present in the meat, the bacteria can multiply.

Morris Potter, assistant director for food-borne disease at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, said that the extent of the illnesses caused by E. coli 0157:H7 is unknown and may range from 6,000 to 20,000 cases a year in this country.

Conner reported from Olympia and Puzo from Washington, D.C.