Ground Beef E. coli Testing Law Would List Habitual Defenders on Public Web Site
So far this year, U.S. consumers have been dealt at least one dozen ground beef outbreaks of E. coli O157:H7, including the current Fairbank Farms ground beef E. coli outbreak that is still a threat to make people gravely ill.
Some of the more than 500,000 pounds of recalled E. coli ground beef related to this multi-state outbreak is believed to still be lurking in the home freezers of people unaware of the danger. National food safety law firm Pritzker Olsen Attorneys has been in contact with E. coli HUS victims of this outbreak and is accepting cases. If you or a loved one has been affected this outbreak, which already has killed two people, contact an E. coli lawyer at 1-888-377-8900 or complete one of our online contact and information forms.
The crush of hamburger E. coli outbreaks this year and last year has caught the attention of many in Washington, including Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-New York, who has introduced a law intended to end a dangerous practice in the meat industry that was exposed last month by a story in the New York Times. As a law firm dedicated to the prevention of all foodborne illness, we applaud her effort.
During a 2008 industry-wide sampling of all ground beef produced, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) found that 0.32 percent of ground beef was contaminated with E. coli - that’s nearly 1 in every 300 samples.
Senator Gillibrand’s proposed E. coli Eradication Act would require meat plants that produce the cuts and trimmings that make ground beef to test their products regularly. And when the ingredients arrive at a grinding plant, they would be tested again before all the components are ground together. Currently, according to the Times story, it’s typical for grinding facilities to have unwritten agreements with slaughterhouses NOT to test the incoming beef cuts. That way, contaminated meat can’t be traced to the supplier if E. coli is found in the finished ground beef.
For those facilities where source trim and grinding occurs at the same facility, the legislation requires one test of the source trim and another test of the final ground product.
Gillibrand’s legislation also calls for habitual violators to be listed on a public website. Any slaughterhouse or processing establishment that produces or distributes trim with positive E. coli test results for 3 consecutive days, or more than 10 times per year, will be deemed a habitual violator. The bill also establishes enforcement action against plants that fail to test or fail to notify the USDA of positive E. coli results.
Tags: Beef E. coli, E. coli Outbreak, Ecoli, Fairbank Farms lawsuit
