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Being halfway home in terms of pathogen management still is not a comfort zone.
We may think we have won the war with E.coli O157:H7, but we are only halfway there. Let's take a glance at history before we look to the future. The first hint of the "war" to come was in 1982, when two children became sick from eating undercooked ground beef contaminated with E. coli O157:H7. This pathogen was on no one's radar screen. Not much happened for the next 10 to 11 years.
Then, in 1994, Jack-in-the-Box changed our world. We had two major outbreaks, 600 people became sick, and four children died from eating ground beef contaminated with E. coli O157:H7.
These events occurred at the beginning of the Clinton administration. In fact, these outbreaks were among the first topics discussed at President Clinton's cabinet meetings. The U.S. Department of Agriculture responded aggressively by enforcing cooking standards for ground beef by mandating Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP) and enforcing "zero tolerance" for fecal contamination. E. coli O157:H7 became the first U.S. pathogen in raw meat to be labeled as an "adulterant": not allowed at any speed!
Government testing for E. coli O157:H7 ushered in an era of large grinder recalls and other changes.
* Hudson Foods, 25 million pounds.
* Swift, 18 million pounds.
* Numerous other recalls between 250,000 pounds and 1 million pounds.
* Even though E. coli O157:H7 did not originate from the grinders, USDA and the industry still were not working at the source of contamination.
* USDA forced the beef-slaughter industry to consider E. coli O157:H7 as "an adulterant reasonably likely to occur."
* The industry responded with a 100% test-and-hold program for any product that would be ground.
* Positive product was diverted to cook operations, providing economic incentive for problems to be fixed on the slaughter floor.
In the last four years,...