Salmonella and E-Coli in Food. New Food Safety Group Prioritizes Prevention

If it isn’t peanut butter, it’s cookie dough or tomatoes or spinach or any one of a number of foods that are carrying pathogens that make Americans sick. In fact, there are an average of 1.3 million cases of salmonella and 70,000 E. Coli poisonings each year in this country. Is anyone going to do anything about it?

The Government Food Safety Working Group

To address the issue of food-borne illnesses President Obama formed the Food Safety Working Group and tasked it with developing new rules and methods to keep our food supply safe. Citing that there are approximately 350 food-borne disease outbreaks per year in the U.S., as compared to an average of 100 in the 1990s, Obama said in a weekly radio address broadcast in March, 2009, “We are a nation built on the strength of individual initiative. But there are certain things that we can’t do on our own. There are certain things that only a government can do. And one of those things is ensuring that the foods we eat…are safe and don’t cause harm.”

This cabinet-level panel—led by the Secretary of Health and Human services and the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture—will set out to overcome a number of challenges that have plagued recent food safety efforts. These include new disease causing agents, an increasingly globalized food supply (the U.S. imports foods from about 150 different countries via more than 300 ports of entry), changes in the U.S. population, and new dietary patterns.

To do this, the Food Safety Working Group is working to prioritize prevention, strengthen surveillance and enforcement, and improve response and recovery when outbreaks do occur.

New rules being instituted by the group include:

Salmonella in eggs – On July 7, 2009, The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a rule to control Salmonella contamination of eggs during production. This rule is estimated to reduce the number of food-borne illnesses associated with consumption of raw or undercooked contaminated shell eggs by approximately 60 percent, or 79,000 illnesses every year and will generate annual savings of over $ 1 billion.

Salmonella in poultry – The agency will develop new standards to reduce the prevalence of Salmonella in turkeys and poultry. The agency will also establish a Salmonella verification program with the goal of having 90 percent of poultry establishments meeting the new standards by the end of 2010.

E-coli enforcement in beef facilities – In 2009, the group issued improved instructions to its workforce on how to verify that establishments that handle beef are acting to reduce the presence of E. coli. In particular, the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) increased its sampling to test for this pathogen, focusing largely on components that go into making ground beef.

E coli in leafy greens, melons, and tomatoes – FDA also issued commodity-specific draft guidance on preventive controls that industry can implement to reduce the risk of microbial contamination in the production and distribution of tomatoes, melons, and leafy greens. These proposals will help the Federal government establish a minimum standard for production across the country. Over the next two years, FDA will seek public comment and work to require adoption of these approaches through regulation.

Tracing and response system – Processes have been, and will continue to be, put in place to trace-back outbreaks to their source, respond to outbreaks via a unified incident command system, improve how federal agencies coordinate their work as well as are accountable for actions they take, improve how federal and state agencies work together, update emergency response procedures, and use new technologies to communicate food safety information.

It helps to know that our government is working to make our food supply as safe as possible. In the meantime, cook meat and eggs well enough to destroy pathogens, thoroughly wash produce, and buy greens from reputable sellers.