|
Salmonella outbreak linked to ground beef
Beef Packers Inc.
of Fresno recalls 800,000 pounds of ground
beef products. The meat was repackaged and
sold under various brands, so the USDA urges
consumers to check with their retailers.
By Jerry
Hirsch
August 7, 2009
There's another salmonella scare -- this
time with ground beef from a Fresno
packinghouse.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture said
Thursday that Beef Packers Inc. was
recalling more than 800,000 pounds of ground
beef products that may be linked to an
outbreak of salmonella-caused illnesses. The
company is a division of Minneapolis-based
agribusiness giant Cargill Inc.
The beef was processed between June 5 and
June 23 and has "EST. 31913" printed on the
case code labels. It was sold in stores in
California, Arizona, Colorado and Utah.
Because the meat was repackaged into
consumer-size amounts and sold under various
retail brand names, the agency is urging
shoppers to check with their retailers to
determine whether they may have bought any
of the meat.
Consumers with questions about the recall
can also call the Beef Packers consumer line
at (877) 872-3635.
The link between the salmonella outbreak and
the ground beef was discovered by the
Colorado Department of Public Health and
Environment after a flurry of illnesses. The
agency alerted federal authorities.
This outbreak involves the Salmonella
newport strain of the disease, which is
resistant to many commonly prescribed drugs
and results more frequently in
hospitalization, regulators said.
Salmonella is among the most common
food-borne illnesses and can be
life-threatening to people with weak immune
systems, including infants, the elderly,
those with HIV infection and those
undergoing chemotherapy. People typically
start to get diarrhea, abdominal cramps and
fever within eight to 72 hours of infection.
Additional symptoms include chills,
headache, nausea and vomiting, and the
disease can last up to seven days.
Salmonella sometimes appears in foods that
are typically eaten raw, such as tomatoes,
peppers and melons. Just two weeks ago a
Salinas company recalled romaine lettuce
because it was linked to the illness. An
outbreak linked to peanuts this year killed
at least nine people.
The steady drumbeat of food-borne illness
outbreaks prompted the House of
Representatives to pass food safety
legislation last week. The bill would
require more government inspections and
oversight of food manufacturers and give the
Food and Drug Administration new authority
to order recalls. (The USDA oversees meat
products.)
It also would require the FDA to develop a
system to better trace food-borne illnesses
and would allow the government to penalize
those who violate the law. Food companies
would be required to create detailed food
safety plans. A similar bill awaits action
in the Senate.
Regulators probably jumped on the beef case
out of concern for antibiotic-resistant
strains of salmonella, said William Marler,
a Seattle attorney and food safety expert
who specializes in food-borne illness
litigation.
Unlike the often-lethal food-borne bacterium
E. coli O157:H7, salmonella is not
considered an "adulterant" by federal food
regulations and does not trigger an
automatic recall, Marler said.
"I commend the company for recalling the
beef because legally, they would be on
strong ground not to do so," he said.
The pathogens are treated differently
because it takes only a small amount of E.
coli O157:H7 -- just 50 organisms -- to
infect a person, whereas it typically takes
millions of salmonella bacteria to trigger
an illness, Marler said.
Nonetheless, Marler would like to see
regulation expanded to include salmonella
and other pathogens that cause serious
illness.
"I think that anything that can poison or
kill a person should be listed as an
adulterant," he said.
Increased regulation, however, still might
not reduce the number of food-borne illness
outbreaks, said Mark Jarvis, chief
executive of Steritech Group, a
Charlotte food safety and plant inspection
firm.
"In the final analysis, this is most often
simply an execution gap -- even the most
rigorous food safety and quality standards
are valueless unless manufacturers are able
to operationalize them," Jarvis said.
He said improvements in tracking of food
products could help reduce the size of the
outbreaks.
"Is it reasonable to expect thousands of
consumers to contact their local grocers to
find out whether the product was
contaminated or not? Sophisticated,
technology-enabled systems should be in
place to determine, at the click of a
button, which product is contaminated so
that it can be withdrawn from the market in
a timely and effective fashion," Jarvis
said.
In the meantime, thorough cooking and proper
handling can prevent infections from
contaminated meats.
Some precautions include washing hands with
hot, soapy water for at least 20 seconds
both before and after handling raw meat and
poultry. Cooks should prevent raw meat, fish
and poultry from touching food that will be
served raw, such as fruit and vegetables.
And dishes and utensils used to prepare
meats should not also be used for other raw
foods unless they are first washed with hot,
soapy water.
The USDA also suggests using one set of
cutting boards for raw meat, poultry and egg
products and a different set for preparing
foods that will be served without cooking.
Beef and pork should be cooked to an
internal temperature of 160 degrees. Poultry
needs to go to 165 degrees. A good food
thermometer is helpful for checking the
internal temperatures of meat.
It's also important to get raw meat and
poultry into the refrigerator within two
hours after purchase, and even faster on hot
days.
|
