The Egg on Trial
In “The Great Egg Panic” (Jan. 5, 2000), Emily Green says that efforts to control Salmonella enteritidis bacteria on egg-producing farms are futile and misguided. That is far from the case. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that the decline in illnesses from [S. enteritidis] that Green highlights as a reason not to implement President Clinton’s plan may be attributed to on-farm control programs that serve as the model for the changes the Clinton administration has proposed. If those programs were adopted nationally, fewer contaminated eggs would reach--and sicken--consumers.
The article contends that much of the contamination results not from eggs but from cross-contamination by sloppy cooks. Green was apparently unaware of a large body of scientific evidence that persuaded CDC as long as 15 years ago that the original source of [S. enteritidis] is not the cook but the egg itself. As an egg ages, [S. enteritidis] inside the egg can migrate from the white to the nutrient-rich yolk, where it can multiply rapidly. If contaminated eggs are not fully cooked, they can cause serious illnesses in consumers.
MICHAEL F. JACOBSON, PhD
Executive Director, Center for Science in the Public Interest, Washington D.C.
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Emily Green responds:
Michael Jacobson is reading between the lines but missing the print itself. Nowhere did I call President Clinton’s Egg Safety Action Plan “futile” or “misguided.” Rather, I reported objections to it from biologists with decades of experience studying chickens, eggs and avian diseases.
His allusion to a “large body of data” purportedly missed in the article is vague. However, my foray through Salmonella literature going back to World War II did reveal a remarkable phenomenon. In the last 12 years, what was perfectly legitimate speculation by CDC doctors concerning the possible origin of S. enteritidis somehow transmogrified into fact once it reached the pages of political reports. It should be stressed that CDC speculation concerning S. enteritidis remains unproven. This is not surprising. Scientific and medical journals are not tablets of stone. Much of what appears in them is guesswork. A process of tossing up and shooting down guesses is how science works. This also explains the recent turnaround over cholesterol in eggs.
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It is unusual and refreshing to see the Center for Science in the Public Interest accurately characterized by the media as being more concerned about hype than science.
For nearly three decades, this organization has been whipping up fear over food while remaining virtually unchallenged by the press or the scientific community.
By generating more heat than light, [the center] helps create fear consumers have over the safety of eggs and other food products.
RICK BERMAN
Executive Director, Guest Choice Network, Washington D.C.
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(Editor’s note: The Guest Choice Network is a coalition of more than 30,000 restaurant and tavern operators that opposes government regulation of food-related industries.)
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The Center for Science in the Public Interest doesn’t seem to realize the government has been slow to act because producing and marketing eggs free of S. enteritidis is a very difficult (perhaps impossible) problem.
At best, suggested preventive measures are untested. For example, in-shell pasteurization has never been used on large numbers of eggs under industry processing conditions. Even if it works, it may not reduce the number of people who get sick from S. enteritidis. And what about small egg producers who obviously can’t pasteurize? They often produce and deliver a fresher product which may or may not be safer.
The other alternative, suggested in the president’s plan for egg safety, would involve a combination of quality assurance during production and processing and testing and diversion of eggs to breaking plants from flocks which test environmentally positive. Details of this have not been released, but the amount of flock and egg testing suggested in their examples would be very costly, and the egg sample size suggested would not provide meaningful consumer protection.
Apparently careful food handling and cooking are no longer consumer responsibilities. Rather, the [center] seems to see it as a government responsibility. It is easy for people who don’t understand the problem to suggest solutions.
RALPH A. ERNST
Poultry specialist, UC Davis
