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Beef recalls raise concerns about food safetyNEWARK, N.J. (AP)--Nationwide recalls by two frozen hamburger companies have brought renewed demands to update the nation's century-old meat inspection system and give the government more power to keep questionable products off the dinner table. As nearly 40 people recovered from E. coli infections linked to tainted patties, consumer groups, including Consumers Union and the Consumer Federation of America, insisted that the U.S. Department of Agriculture be given the authority to issue recalls. Currently, the USDA can only recommend a recall to a company, or pull its products from shelves. "Usually, companies want to protect their name and brand and cooperate. But without mandatory recall, USDA is at a disadvantage in those negotiations," said Chris Waldrop, director of the CFA's Food Policy Institute. The hamburger recalls in late September and early October involved 23 million pounds of frozen patties. Many of the nearly 40 people sickened since July were hospitalized, but all survived the potentially fatal illness. Legislation proposed by U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, would give the USDA the authority to issue recalls, in addition to requiring that producers carry recall insurance to cover the cost of handling a recall. "The whole goal here is to protect people and jobs," Brown said. In some ways, the USDA is fighting the last war, when sick and dying livestock were dragged to slaughter. That campaign began following the 1906 indictment of the meat industry in Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle," said Michael R. Taylor, who headed the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service in the Clinton administration. The current inspection scheme is obsolete and wasteful, Taylor said. Much as they did 100 years ago, USDA inspectors check hundreds of millions beef and pork carcasses and some 8 billion chickens annually--devoting about 2 seconds to each bird, he said. Such a system contributes little to food safety, the National Academy of Sciences concluded 20 years ago, he noted. Instead, the focus should be on checking for E. coli bacteria in beef, and other microscopic dangers in poultry, he said. "The USDA has a 100-year mandate for carcass-by-carcass examination, which is simply not effective for identifying pathogens," said Taylor, now a professor at George Washington University. "We don't have much problem with diseased animals coming into slaughterhouses; we have trouble with microbes." In Taylor's view, the USDA should still have inspectors at every meat and poultry plant, but they would be focused on sampling the product to develop a picture of microbial activity, while the FDA, which regulators other foods, would become more focused on preventing outbreaks. Slaughterhouses are not required to test carcasses for pathogens, and if they do, they are not required to hold onto the meat until they get results, according to the American Meat Institute, a trade group. Many meatpackers test their finished product, such as frozen or raw hamburger, but that is not required, the AMI said. The recent outbreaks reversed a steady decline of E. coli in ground beef that began in 2000, but the government and industry are not certain whether that signals a trend or was due to random events. "We're trying to determine if this is a seasonal fluctuation," said Janet M. Riley, senior vice president of the American Meat Institute, whose 220 members operate some 5,500 meat processing and packing plants. "Something happened this summer. It's different," Richard Raymond, USDA undersecretary for food safety, said in early October. "We know that we can do better." He pledged that the agency would move quicker to alert the public about contaminated meat. The USDA was criticized for not seeking a recall from Topps Meat Co., until 18 days after preliminary tests indicated that its frozen hamburger patties were contaminated with the E. coli bacteria strain O157:H7. Topps eventually issued a recall Sept. 25, and then expanded it Sept. 29 to include all frozen patties it had made in the past year--21.7 million pounds--the second-largest beef recall in U.S. history. Much of the meat had already been eaten, however, and illness in at least 35 people in eight states has been linked to the Topps hamburgers. Keith Goodwin said the victims include his wife and a son, and wondered if the timing of the recall was at fault. He said they ate Topps hamburgers at a family picnic Sept. 15 in upstate New York, more than a week after authorities had evidence that Topps patties were contaminated. "If the public had been made aware of that, a lot of these illnesses would have been avoided," said Goodwin, of Groton, N.Y., who teaches at the town's elementary school. Noting that Banquet and generic brand chicken and turkey pot pies made by ConAgra Foods Inc. were linked in middle October to over 150 salmonella cases, Goodwin said, "Food is being pushed out at such a rapid pace to keep up with demand, the product is not as safe as it could be. And we're risking human life." He said his wife, Kristin, 34, was hospitalized for two days, while his son Lucas, 8, suffered kidney failure and was hospitalized for eight days. "The whole ordeal has been very scary," Goodwin said. Topps, of Elizabeth, N.J., went out of business Oct. 5. Nearly 90 workers lost their jobs. Later Oct. 5, the Sam's Club warehouse chain pulled a brand of ground beef patties from its shelves nationwide after four children in Minnesota developed E. coli illness from the hamburger, produced by Cargill Inc., at its plant in Butler, Wis. Cargill recalled more than 840,000 pounds of frozen patties. The USDA said the cases are not related, and that the source of the contamination has not yet been determined for either recall. The O157:H7 strain of E. coli bacteria, which can be fatal to humans, is harbored in the intestines of cattle and can also get on their hides. Improper butchering and processing can cause the E. coli to get onto meat. Thorough cooking, to at least 160 degrees internal temperature, can destroy the bacteria. Topps got beef parts from slaughterhouses, ground them, formed the meat into patties and froze them. The Cargill plant near Milwaukee is a similar operation. Cargill, based in Wayzata, Minn., is one of the nation's largest privately held companies and makes food ingredients, moves commodities around the world and runs financial commodities trading businesses. Privately held Topps, which claimed to be the leading U.S. maker of frozen hamburger patties, sold its products to supermarkets and institutions such as schools, hospitals, restaurants and hotels. 11/19/07 Date: 11/9/07
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