Beef Carcass Inspection Standards Tightened to Bar Contamination

The Agriculture Department has toughened inspection standards for beef carcasses in response to an outbreak of food poisoning from bacterially contaminated ground beef, it said Thursday.

In a memo issued earlier this week, the Food Safety and Inspection Service told meat inspectors and plant operators that no level of contamination by feces or undigested food would be allowed on carcasses or boneless beef.

Previously, a certain number of “specks” of contamination were allowed, said Jim Greene, an inspection service spokesman. “We did allow extremely small amounts,” he said. “That’s because it’s practically impossible to guarantee a carcass that’s entirely free.”

The memo also said all contamination with feces, milk or undigested food must be cut from the carcass before it can be washed. Previously, inspectors could try to hose off contamination. But critics said the water pressure could embed the contaminated material in the carcass.

Feces, milk and undigested food can carry E. coli bacteria, a form of which caused an outbreak of food poisoning in January on the West Coast. At least two children died and some 475 people fell ill as a result of the poisoning outbreak linked to Jack in the Box hamburgers. A third child also died of E. coli complications, but the source of her infection has not been determined.

“These sources of meat contamination must be properly and totally controlled,” said the memo from W.S. Horne, deputy administrator for inspection operations.

The zero-tolerance level is “a genuine sanitation breakthrough,” said Tom Devine, legal director for the Government Accountability Project.