Salmonella continues to be one of the leading causes of foodborne illness globally. It’s ubiquitous presence in food and the environment makes it easy to find, but more difficult to control. Consumer groups, through petitions, have tried to pigeonhole FSIS into addressing Salmonella the same way as we have STEC by asking it to be declared an adulterant. Scientists from industry, academia and the government all know that we must take a different approach to addressing Salmonella because the pathogenicity of the two are not the same. In order to impact Salmonella from a public health perspective, we must make wise choices and not knee-jerk ones for public perception.

FSIS took a strong approach to addressing Salmonella when they developed the initial performance standards for poultry. It was determined that baselines should be developed at points in the process where the most contamination was present and performance standards were developed based on the baseline prevalence combined with the target Healthy People (HP) reduction goals, currently HP 2030. In other words, how much of a reduction was needed in products to correlate to a reduction in human illness?

It was an innovative approach at the time and has indeed resulted in reductions of Salmonella in poultry. There has been criticism that these numbers are not resulting in reductions in human illness but in reality, the CDC attribution data is limited to the timeline of reduction in the product. Additionally, it took several years before the adulterant status of STECS correlated to a reduction in human illnesses, so there should not be so much emphasis placed on this point just yet. While the agency took great strides by establishing performance standards in poultry, the innovation has leap-frogged over this approach. Government decisions move slowly and now they are placed at a disadvantage as we face beef and pork performance standards. The approach is outdated.

Thankfully, both the meat and poultry industry as well as the microbial test kit industry along with scientists have led the way in making new strides to control Salmonella. There are two key elements that are being considered; 1) the total numbers of Salmonella present and 2) the type of Salmonella cells. Not all Salmonella follow this pattern, but the vast majority do. Also, not all ”types” of Salmonella cause illnesses. I am using the term “types” rather loosely but what I mean is that we need to focus on the serotype in general and more specifically, the genetic element(s) that make Salmonella pathogenic to humans. Scientists are advancing research to identify genes related to pathogenicity that one day can be incorporated into test kits for rapid detection of the most pathogenic Salmonella.

Right now we have rapid methods that can count the total Salmonella in a given sample. Many test kit manufacturers have moved to this technology, be it a “LOD” (level of detection) concept or a quantitative estimate. Both the industry and academia are on board with this approach, but the agency has lagged behind in adopting this approach. They collect samples each week to detect Salmonella and it is certainly time that they move forward with the rest of the scientific community and start quantifying the amount of Salmonella in the samples so they can develop performance standards based on quantification rather than detection. It is literally no extra cost than detection using the current technologies.

In the meantime, as we wait for FSIS to pivot to quantification, the industry and academia can continue to forge ahead to control Salmonella using new technologies. The industry does and should continue to biomap processes understanding points in the process where Salmonella is detected vs quantified. This data is valuable to target points of control and where to expend resources for targeted mitigation. Additionally, when performance standards are proposed or enforced, the data on-hand can be presented to the agency for better decision-making. In academia, when working on validation, pathogen mapping or other research projects, use of quantification can lead to better information in the peer reviewed literature to continue to advance the field.

The scientific community is “counting on” Salmonella to make better decisions to impact public health in a way that hasn’t advanced in many years. I look forward to the day when we can rapidly identify the most pathogenic types of Salmonella; I think this is coming soon. I know it takes time for the agency to move on new technology, but it is time. Working together to affect public health in the years to come will save lives ... we are all “counting” on it!

'Counting on' salmonella for safety

Join for free* to continue reading.