It’s miraculous.
Surely nothing else accounts for the fact that consumer beef
demand continues to hang tough despite a year pockmarked by food
safety worries surrounding melamine and other adulterants in
foods imported from China, and worse, no fewer than 11 beef
recalls in this country.
E. coli (0157:H7, specifically) has been the most vexing. A
decade ago the beef industry organized a task force to fight
against it, figure out the most effective technologies and
cost-effective strategies to minimize the risk, and to build
consensus among the various partners of the food chain. Today,
that group is known as the Beef Industry Food Safety Council (www.bifsco.org).
The impetus a decade ago was driven in no small part by the
largest ground beef recall in history. In 1997 Hudson Foods
ultimately recalled more than 25 million pounds of ground beef
because hamburger patties manufactured by the company were
tainted with the bacteria. Since then Hudson Foods is no longer
in business and the industry made huge strides in reducing
incidence of E. coli 0157:H7. As recently as last year it
appeared the industry truly had this particular food-borne
pathogen cinched up tighter than a wormy horse on a trail ride.
According to BIFSCO’s executive summary from its Beef Industry
Safety Summit last year, “The Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS)
announced in April (2006), that during the 2005 calendar year,
just 0.173 percent of ground beef samples tested positive for E.
coli O157:H7, which is similar to the 2004 level of 0.175
percent…In 2005, FSIS collected nearly 11,000 samples and only
found 19 to be positive for E. coli O157:H7.
“Declines in human illness due to E. coli O157:H7 closely
parallel the lower incidence in ground beef samples. According
to FoodNet data released by the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) in April of 2006, there were only 1.06 cases
per 100,000 people. Overall there has been a 29 percent
reduction in human illness due to E. coli O157:H7 in the last 10
years.”
A year earlier the FSIS data showed that the percentage of E.
coli O157:H7 positive ground beef samples collected in 2004 fell
by 43.3% when compared with the previous year. Between 2000 and
2004, the percentage of positive samples of E. coli O157:H7 had
declined by more than 80%. FSIS also reported that there were
six recalls related to E. coli O157:H7 in 2004 compared to 12 in
2003 and 21 in 2002 (more later).
The Fragility of Intervention
Then came this past year, especially September when Topps Meat
Company, LLC of Elizabeth, NJ closed its doors after 67 years in
business due to the economics associated with the second largest
ground beef recall in history.
The company had voluntarily recalled about 300,000 lbs. of
frozen patties September 25 because of concerns about
contamination with E. coli 0157:H7. By September 29 they had
expanded the recall to 21.7 million pounds.
According to USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, “There
are currently 25 illnesses under investigation (end of
September) in Connecticut, Florida, Indiana, Maine, New Jersey,
New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania. An investigation carried out by
the New York Department of Health in coordination with the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, preceded the recall
of Sept. 25.”
“This is tragic for all concerned,” said Anthony D’Urso, Chief
Operating Officer. “In one week we have gone from the largest
U.S. manufacturer of frozen hamburgers to a company that cannot
overcome the economic reality of a recall this large. We
sincerely regret the impact this will have on our employees, our
customers and suppliers, and the community. Most of all, we
regret that our products have been linked by public health
agencies to recently reported illnesses. We hope and pray for
the full recovery of those individuals.”
Both the company and USDA have come under fire.
According to USDA officials recalling a full year’s worth of
Topps frozen ground beef production stemmed from the fact that
upon investigation their were inconsistencies between what the
company said they would do in terms of their Hazard Analysis and
Critical Control Points (HACCP) plan and what they were actually
doing.
“It is unacceptable that even one company was not following
commonly accepted safety interventions in place for many years.
We expect all partners in the beef chain to do their part for
food safety and implement these science-based safety
interventions,” says J.O. “Bo” Regan, BIFSCO chairman. “Through
the Beef Industry Food Safety Council, we researched and
developed interventions that have been implemented as part of a
comprehensive safety system from production to consumer. The use
of this system led to a decrease in E. coli incidence. We
continuously work to get ahead of this complex pathogen. In
addition to the steps outlined by the United States Department
of Agriculture (USDA), we will closely examine our existing
interventions and develop new ways to further ensure beef
safety. We will not rest until E. coli has been eliminated.”
As for USDA, they’re receiving criticism for both the amount of
time it took them to issue a recall in the Topps case, and the
fact that the agency may not have communicated specifically
enough or followed up on the E. coli-based safety requirements
it issued in 2002.
In terms of the timing, Richard Raymond, FSIS Undersecretary for
Food safety explains it was 11 days after the agency received a
DNA match between the first patient sickened with E. Coli and
the Topps-manufactured meat from their freezer.
“The agency is not completely satisfied with the time that
elapsed between our first notification of the PFGE confirmation
and the issuance of the recall,” says David Goldman, Assistant
Administrator at the Office of Public Health. “Since September
25, in addition to managing the recall, our scientists and
Recall Committee members have been reviewing the data related to
this recall as well as our own protocols to determine how we
might improve the way we conduct these recalls in the future.
We’ve determined in fact that there is room for improvement, and
we intend to act on the findings of our review immediately.”
In terms of following up on additional requirements issued in
2002, Daniel Engeljohn, FSIS Deputy Assistant Administrator
explains, “What we’ve found of recent, and in particular with
the Topps recall is that there are some non-uniform application
of the policies that we are identifying, some lessons learned in
terms of some ineffective programs that were in fact addressed
but not to a level that would be demonstrated to be effective.
And so this is what we’re going to focus on at this point…What
we are announcing today is in fact something new in which we
will be looking more definitively at the underlying support for
those controls so that we will have a more thorough assessment
of what actually was done and whether or not those controls are
effective. So we will be capturing that information and using it
to guide us as to if and when we should take more immediate
enforcement action.”
All told, through September of this year, according to FSIS
there were 32 total meat-related food recalls. Of those, 10
involved beef; of those, eight recalls were due to E. Coli
0157:H7. And, that was before Cargill Meat Solutions recalled
844,812 lbs. of frozen ground beef patties for the same reason
in October. A day later J&B Meats Corporation of Coal Valley, IL
recalled 173,534 lbs. of ground beef products.
A Litigator’s Perspective
“A decade ago most of my clients were sickened by E.
coli-tainted meat. In fact, between 1993 and 2002 I recovered
over $250 Million from the meat industry and restaurants in
verdicts and settlements on behalf of those clients, mostly
children with kidney failure caused from consuming E.
coli-tainted hamburger,” says William Marler of the
Seattle-based Marler Clark LLP PS. “And, then it stopped. From
2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006 and through the spring of 2007 there
were few recalls or illnesses tied to hamburger. I did not sue
the meat industry often and I touted it, as a model of what an
industry could do that was right to protect consumers.” Marler
and his firm have been involved in some of the more notable E.
Coli poisoning cases, dating back to the Jack in the Box E. Coli
case in 1993.
“Since April of this year, nearly 30,000,000 pounds of red meat,
mostly hamburger, has been recalled. E. coli illnesses once on a
downturn have spiked. Kids are getting sick; seriously sick
again,” continues Marler. Speaking to the massive Topps recall,
he adds, “This recall tops the Con Agra recall of 19,000,000
pounds in 2002 that sickened over forty and killed one and is
just under the 25,000,000 pounds recalled by now-bankrupt Hudson
Foods in 1997. And, this is not the first time Topps was caught
selling E. coli contaminated meat.”
In October Marler called on Congress to conduct hearings into
the safety of the domestic meat supply. His firm has also sued
Topps and Cargill Meat Solutions over the recent ground beef
recalls.
“We had three really good years where the number of E.Coli
infections related to ground beef were declining or very low. We
had three really good years where the amount of product that we
sampled was extremely low as far as coming back positive for
E.coli,” says Raymond. “Something happened this summer. It’s
different. It was a high prevalence season, but we saw the
sample numbers go up, we saw the recall numbers go up, we saw
human illnesses attributed to ground beef go up.
“It’s our responsibility to make sure that all those plants out
there that are making ground beef have these systems in
place…This is kind of a wake-up call.” |
