Protecting Americans From Food-Borne Pathogens In The Meat Supply:

Joe Brennesholtz

PUB 529

Prof. Linden

Protecting Americans From Food-borne Pathogens in the Meat Supply:

Policy Analysis and Recommendations

Introduction

In January of 1993, medical staff at a hospital in Seattle Washington noticed that a large number of children were being treated for bloody diarrhea. Many had developed a rare condition known as hemolytic uremic syndrome, a disorder that often results in permanent kidney damage. It was soon discovered that these children had all eaten undercooked hamburgers from the fast food chain Jack in the Box (Schlosser; 198).

At least seven hundred individuals in Washington, Idaho, and Nevada State ate hamburgers from the restaurants that were contaminated with a potentially lethal strain of bacteria known as E. Coli 0157:H7. This set off a wave of bad press for the food chain, and for a short while the conditions of the American meatpacking industry as it was discovered that in fact tainted meat had been shipped from a Vons Companies Inc., to Jack in the Box. This was the greatest outbreak of E. Coli that the United States has ever experienced. Because of the E. Coli outbreak, over seven hundred people, most of them children became severely ill some sustaining permanent organ damage, and four children died, three of them in the Seattle metropolitan area (USDoD; Online).

In July and August of 1997 in Colorado, people began getting ill from the E. Coli 0157:H7 bacterium again. This time health officials were quicker in discovering and tracing the problem. Once again, the outbreak was linked to contaminated ground meat from a single source, the Hudson Foods Plant in Columbus, Nebraska. The plant had been a supplier of meat to Midwestern restaurants of both Burger King, and Boston Market, as well as selling the meat as packages of individual hamburger patties to retail stores such as Safeway, and Walmart (CNN; Online).

On August 12th Hudson voluntarily recalled 20,000 pounds or 80,000 hamburger patties worth of frozen meat. On the 14th that number doubled to 40,000 pounds of meat. In that week, Hudson increased the amount of meat recalled to 1.2 million pounds. One week later on August 21st the Columbus plant was shut down by the USDA and a total of 35 million pounds of frozen beef were recalled (Schlosser; 196).

This outbreak was caught and contained rather quickly by Colorado health officials. Only seventeen individuals in the State had reported illness from the contaminated meat (PBS, Online). However, the recall of 35 million pounds of frozen ground beef was the largest, most costly recall in the history of the United States, and by the time it was completed, about 25 million pounds of that meat had already been eaten (Schlosser, 195).

The latter half of 1998 saw an outbreak of food poisoning not as well known as E. Coli 157:H7 or Salmonella. Listeria monocytogenes had contaminated deli meats, and hot dogs produced by a Sara Lee food packing plant in Zeeland, Michigan. Often, a bout of listeriosis would amount to flu-like symptoms for several days, but severe cases could lead to blood infection, meningitis, miscarriage and stillbirths among pregnant women, and even death (Burros; Online)

The outbreak affected seventeen states across the country, from Vermont to Arizona. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC) there were a total number of seventy-two cases of listeriosis. Thirteen cases resulted in death and there were a total of five miscarriage or stillborn cases (Pauly; Online). In addition, this outbreak saw another huge recall. This time 15 million pounds of hot dogs and cold-cuts sold under several brand names including Ball Park, Bil Mar, Bryan Bunsize, Bryan 3lb Club Pack, Grillmaster, Hygrade, Mr. Turkey, Sara Lee Deli Meat, and Sara Lee Home Roast were recalled (Burros; Online).

The Problem

In this section we will briefly cover the size and the scope of the problem of food born pathogens in the United States' meat supply. In addition to evidence of the seriousness of this problem, we will discuss some economic problems caused by food pathogens, and some consumer rights perspectives on the problem.

Although the last ten years has seen new regulations such as the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point or HACCP, the problem of food poisoning from tainted meat seems to be growing. For example, there were two thousand deaths related to food poisoning in 1984 that were reported. By 1994, the number of reported food poisoning cases grew to approximately nine thousand (PBS; Online).

According to the CDC, there are about 76 million cases of food poisoning a year. Out of these cases almost 350,000 people are hospitalized, and over 5,000 cases prove fatal (Long, Newhouse Online). It is almost indisputable that the condition of American slaughterhouses, meat processing and packing plants are among the leading causes in creating products that spread toxic bacteria to the general public. The CDC website reports that the most likely sources of food born pathogens are of animal origin, including meat, poultry, eggs, milk, and shellfish (CDC, Online).

In 1995 and 1996 the US Department of Agriculture conducted a study of American meat packing plants to determine how much of the meat produced was contaminated. The study was published in 1996 and reported that 7.5 percent of the meat sampled contained Salmonella, 11.7 percent contained Listeria monocytogenes, and 30 percent were contaminated with Staphylococcus aureus. (Schlosser, 197) All of these contaminants cause sickness, listeria proves fatal in roughly 25 percent of cases according to a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) website. The same website puts fatalities for Salmonella poisoning between 1 and 15 percent depending on the strain of salmonella and the age of the victim (elderly and children are more at risk then the rest of the general public).

It should be pointed out that food poisoning cases are extremely difficult to track. The CDC and USDA acknowledge that people who develop some sort of food born illness often never seek medical attention. For example, the CDC estimates that 38 cases of salmonellosis really occur for every case that is actually diagnosed and treated by medical doctors (CDC, Online).

In addition to this, outbreaks of food poisoning are difficult to detect since often deaths resulting from a specific pathogen are not reported as such. For instance, many children who have died as a result of the deadly E. Coli 157:H7 have the aforementioned "hemolytic uremic syndrome" listed as cause of death in their death certificates.