Tainted Meat Prompts Outcry

Last week’s recall of 19 million pounds of hamburger exposed major weaknesses in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s inspection program, according to politicians and consumer groups, who are now seeking reform of federal meat inspection regulations.

The recall, the second-largest of its kind in U.S. history, was ordered after E. coli-tainted meat from a ConAgra Foods Inc. plant in Colorado sickened at least 28 people in seven states. Critics maintain that the federal government suspected potential problems months ago and should have acted then.

Top USDA officials acknowledge some of the weaknesses in their food safety inspection procedures, and the agency has pledged to notify plants and their customers more quickly when contamination is discovered. But consumer advocates say the moves are not nearly enough to protect consumers from tainted meat.

With business reform on the minds of many Americans, House and Senate Democrats want to impose penalties on companies that produce unsafe meat. And industry watchdog groups are calling for a congressional investigation into the events leading to the massive meat recall, which is still being linked to more illnesses around the country.

“The ConAgra recall is not an aberration. It is another example of a food safety system that is teetering on the brink of collapse,” said Wenonah Hauter, a director with consumer group Public Citizen. “It’s time for the Congress to take a good, hard look into USDA food safety policies and how they are implemented.”

In particular, critics have blasted the USDA’s Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point food safety program, a relatively new program that replaced the old “sniff and poke” approach performed by government inspectors at private plants.

Because the program allows companies to do their own testing for E. coli, critics say it gives plants leeway to overlook potentially unsafe products and makes it difficult for inspectors to intercept tainted meat.

Moreover, both the General Accounting Office and consumer groups have complained that the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service is understaffed to handle the fast-moving lines at today’s huge plants, and its inspectors are poorly trained and slow to sanction plants turning out tainted products.

E. coli O157:H7, the type found in the ConAgra meat, is one of the more virulent strains of bacteria spread between animals by manure-contaminated water. It rests in the intestines and is mixed into meat during butchering.

Infections from this particular bacteria cause severe diarrhea and abdominal cramps in most people; in the elderly and young children, it can cause kidney failure and even death.

Because it is potentially deadly, the USDA should have acted more quickly to warn consumers after it was discovered, consumer advocates say.

USDA officials waited 11 days after inspectors discovered E. coli 0157:H7 downstream from the Con- Agra plant that regrinds its meat before warning the company and recalling 354,200 pounds of their hamburger.

An additional 19 days went by and a dozen illnesses were reported before the agency widened the recall to 19 million pounds produced between April 12 and July 11.

As early as February, USDA officials had ignored urgings from its own field inspectors to investigate ConAgra’s Greeley, Colo., plant, after it was strongly suspected of supplying E. coli-positive meat to Montana Quality Foods & Processing, another meat processor.

After the meat tested positive, inspections officials refused to test other unopened packages that Montana owner John Munsell thought might help pinpoint the source of the contamination. Testing continued at Munsell’s plant, and after three consecutive positive tests, inspectors then asked for a sample from the original lot that tested positive. By that time, Munsell said he had sold all of the product.

And without the sample, inspection officials said the investigation wasn’t justified. Munsell then took the matter to Sen. Conrad R. Burns (R-Mont.) who in May--long before July’s epidemic--met with USDA Undersecretary for Food Safety Elsa Murano on the matter.

But still the agency took no action.

The USDA’s unwillingness to move against companies also was apparent to congressional investigators studying the USDA’s meat inspection program. Of 68 enforcement cases last year, USDA inspectors informed 60 plants that they would have to stop meat production because of food safety violations, says a report expected to be published by the General Accounting Office this fall. However, in 95% of the cases, they did not follow through on their warnings.

Murano acknowledged that since taking office last year she has found some of the same “weaknesses” that GAO investigators found and is working to correct them. The agency is providing further training for the inspectors already stationed in plants, she said.

Murano also has appointed a new deputy for field operations to crack down on incomplete or inaccurate record keeping by inspectors.

And as of the ConAgra recall, the USDA has changed its policy to immediately inform plants and their customers when illness-causing bacteria is discovered.

Murano also signaled her intent this week to widen the scope of meat recalls, pulling an entire day’s production when a plant tests positive for illness-causing bacteria, as the agency did in the ConAgra recall, rather than a single lot of the product.

Others in the industry are speculating that the sweeping ConAgra recall also could lead to a broader test-and-hold policy at meat plants, where a day’s production of meat would be held until the results of bacterial sampling come back.

Such a move would be costly, requiring the construction of much more refrigerated warehouse space and ultimately cost consumers more at the supermarket, said Jeremy Russell of the National Meat Assn.

Although management of the USDA’s Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point food safety program has drawn a great deal of criticism, the bigger problem appears to be the program itself, which was adopted by meat companies after 1997’s Hudson Foods recall in Nebraska, the largest in U.S. history.

The program does not mandate regular testing for E. coli 0157:H7. Instead, the agency takes 5,000 random samples a year at plant locations and supermarkets.

If a plant’s own test records show it has not tested positive for six months, the agency stops sampling from that plant, a policy that critics say encourages companies to take samples from only the least suspect parts of a carcass.

Inspectors are there to make sure a company’s food safety plan is followed, and the plant kept clean, even though in most cases inspectors have not reviewed these plans to make sure they are effective.

The goal is to come up with treatments that will kill the bacteria on the spot, Murano said.

ConAgra’s procedures of steam-treating and acid-washing carcasses to get rid of E. coli bacteria didn’t work, Murano said.

USDA inspectors will require ConAgra to come up with another plan to assure the agency it can turn out safe beef. However, the agency does not have the authority to immediately shut them down or issue fines for dangerous products, Murano said.

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Reps. Lynn N. Rivers (D-Mich.) and Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) introduced legislation this week that would change that. They also are seeking the authority to levy civil fines against offenders.

Also, California Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles) sent a letter to Murano’s boss, Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman, asking her to explain the agency’s delay in ordering the recall after contamination was first discovered.

But microbiologists say the USDA also should devote more of its resources to head off E. coli before it hits the plant, whether it’s developing feed with beneficial bacteria that kills E. coli in the gut or vaccines to immunize animals against it, said Michael Doyle, head of University of Georgia’s Center for Food Safety and Quality Enhancement.

“The federal government needs to address this at the farm,” Doyle said. “Issues with animals turn into issues with people.”