2. 1993. JACK IN THE BOX

(Or, as the CDC refers to it, the Western States E. coli Outbreak of 1993)

On Feb. 20, 1993, Riley Detweiler died at age 17 months and 2 days from E. coli O157:H7. He had never eaten a hamburger or consumed ground beef products. He contracted the illness at a day care in Bellingham, Wash., from another child later diagnosed with the pathogen.

What changed in the meat world as a result of the outbreak that resulted in four children’s deaths and over 600 other illnesses, most of them young children?

TONS!

A short list follows of many of those changes.

1. On Sept. 29, 1994, at the American Meat Institute’s annual conference in San Francisco, Mike Taylor, the recently appointed Administrator of the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service at the USDA, took the podium to announce that E. coli O157:H7 was now considered, by the USDA, as an adulterant in ground beef, citing the authority given the USDA in the Federal Meat Inspection Act. (Now maybe you can see why I picked “The Jungle” as one of my top three moments?)

2. The position of Undersecretary for Food Safety was created and was, logically, separated from a marketing role. Taylor had guaranteed, with his announcement, that he would never fill that chair.

3. A very young attorney named Bill Marler was unleashed on the industry, representing young victims of the outbreak who were hospitalized in his back yard at Seattle’s Children’s Hospital. It is my personal belief that Mr. Marler, by winning many large personal injury lawsuits, has forced more food safety changes than any policy maker or politician.

4. E. coli O157:H7 was upgraded to a reportable illness by all state health departments.

5. After a long losing court battle attempting to reverse Taylor’s decision, the meat industry declared that food safety and public health measures were not proprietary properties.

6. Hot steam vacuum treatment of carcasses was developed and refined by scientists in 1996 at K State and at the USDA Meat Animal Research Center in tiny Clay Center, Neb., a community of a few hundred boasting more Ph.Ds per capita than any other town or city.

7. Pulse Field Gel Electrophoresis (PFGE) was developed by the CDC and shortly became a part of every state health department’s laboratory testing procedure in suspected cases of foodborne illnesses. PFGE was later added to testing of meat and poultry samples leading to much quicker recognition of the cause of outbreaks and leading to faster recalls, as I will discuss further in Part 3.

8. Recommended cooking temperatures for ground beef was raised from 140 degrees to 160 by the USDA, with the FDA eventually following suit. (So why does my waiter ask me how I would like my hamburger cooked?)

9. In 1997 the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association created BIFSCo (Beef Industry Food Safety Council) which coordinates research and information dissemination for the industry. At their first summit, all attendees signed an agreement to share data and information.

10. The USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection System (FSIS) went from their 100-year-old poke-and-sniff inspection system created as a result of the Pure Food and Drug Act to a new mandated inspection system called HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points) that was designed to prevent invisible pathogens and that increased the burden of providing safe meats on individual facilities.

11. FSIS initiated the testing of ground beef and subsequently testing trim for E. coli O157:H7.

12. Industry ramped up its own testing of its product and, if positive, either cooked or discarded product before FSIS testing so no one except individual companies know the true rate of contaminated product

13. Despite industry’s objections, FSIS declared that it was impossible to obtain 100% pathogen free raw meat and poultry and ramped up education efforts on safe food handling and cooking recommendations that were put onto product labels.

14. Some companies now routinely offer irradiated ground beef to reduce their liability risks.

15. In 1994, STOP (Safe Tables Our Priority) was formed, mainly to represent families who had lost a child to E. coli O157:H7.

16. In recent years, six more non-O157:H7 Shiga Toxin Producing E. coli have been added as adulterants by FSIS.

17. In 2008, FSIS added to recall notices the names of retail outlets where contaminated meat and poultry products were being recalled from to better inform the public and local health officials. To date the FDA has not followed suit.

18. FSIS has also recently (some would say finally) begun more vigorous trace back investigation to try and determine the true source of contamination when product tests positive in downstream, further processing plants.

19. Vaccines for use in cattle to prevent E. coli have been approved but use is limited due to cost, along with phage washes for cattle in slaughter plant holding pens that are also in limited use.

What Have I Forgotten to Mention?

Three Seminal Moments in Food Safety in the U.S., Part 2

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