Dr. Divya Jaroni, a food microbiologist at Southern University Ag Center, will head the study in collaboration with scientists at Louisiana State University and Texas Tech University.

The team will study  the prevalence  of  E. coli under different herd, farm and environment conditions across several  farms. Guidelines for on-farm Best Management Practices  will be developed and the effectiveness of these practices in reducing E. coli O157:H7 on small-scale cow/calf operations will be validated.

The grant money comes from the USDA through its National Institute of Food and Agriculture – Agricultural and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) program.

E. coli O157:H7 in ground beef and other beef products is a major food safety concern and one approach to reduce the threat of contamination in the slaughter process is to develop farming and ranching practices that reduce the load of the pathogen inside the animals before they are butchered.

These bacteria grow harmlessly inside the hind guts of cows and are expelled in feces. When the organisms contaminate cuts of meat at the packing plant, they become a danger to humans because they emit a powerful toxin once inside a person’s intestines. These Shiga toxins attack red blood cells in a process that often leads to clotting and kidney failure. Once in the bloodstream they can cause heart damage, central nervous system disorders, coma, paralysis and brain injury.

In 5 to 15 percent of cases, E. coli infections develop into life-threatening hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) or a related condition known as thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP.) Children under 5 years old are most susceptible to getting HUS.

But the threat of E. coli in ground beef makes it so if your family is unfortunate enough to buy hamburger meat that was contaminated with E. coli O157:H7 in the slaughtering or grinding process.

E. coli O157:H7  in ground beef is banned by the federal government as a dangerous human pathogen. The law requires inspectors to test for it. But the system is far from fail-proof, which inevitably leads to ground beef E. coli outbreaks over and over that injure, hospitalize and kill victims.

In 2009, according to a review of federal records by food safety law firm Pritzker Olsen, more than 1 million pounds of ground beef and beef cuts intended for grinding were recalled from market by USDA-inspected slaughter plants and processors.

The largest of the 15 recalls covered 545,699 pounds of E. coli-contaminated ground beef produced last fall by Fairbank Farms of Ashville, N.Y. Our law firm is representing a young child who developed E. coli HUS after consuming Fairbank Farms beef.

Multi-state E. coli outbreaks associated with these recalls killed at least three people and sickened at least 80, according to the records. The outbreaks resulted in at least 34 hospitalizations and eight confirmed cases of life-threatening hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), a disease especially dangerous to children that causes kidney failure and many other serious health conditions.

Ground beef E. coli outbreaks don’t have to be large in scale to be deadly.  In Cleveland last year, a 7-year-old girl died in a ground beef E. coli outbreak associated with E. coli-tainted ground beef from Valley Meats LLC of Coal Valley, Ill. The company recalled 95,898 pounds of potentially tainted hamburger meat in May 2009 that had been delivered to restaurants.

Another isolated but disturbing ground beef E. coli outbreak occurred in October at a nature camp in Plymouth, Mass. In that case, more than 20 children and chaperons from a middle school in Rhode Island were sickened by contaminated ground beef traced to a meat packer in Brockton, Mass.

It is axiom in food poisoning circles that raw ground beef is the most common vehicle for E. coli O157 infections. Many times the infections come from ground beef hamburgers cooked on the grill. That’s because temperatures of at least 160 degrees are needed to kill E. coli and the only reliable measurement is a food thermometer.

How does E. coli get into ground beef in the first place?

E. coli O157:H7 colonizes in the intestines of cattle without harming them. At slaughter, the pathogen can contaminate muscle meat, sometimes when an intestine is nicked or during the removal of the animal’s hide. Hides are often smeared with feces. Washes and rinses of the carcasses aren’t 100 percent effective in removing the organisms.

E. coli in ground beef survives refrigerator and freezer temperatures and the bacteria do nothing to spoil the appearance or odor of the meat. Once in ground beef,  E. coli can multiply very slowly at temperatures as low as 44 degrees. The actual infectious dose is unknown, but most scientists believe it takes only a small number of this strain of E. coli to cause serious illness.

Still, ground beef E. coli outbreaks are preventable and ground beef E. coli lawsuits play an important role. Without the threat of E. coli litigation in the U.S. justice system, meat packers, retailers and others in the supply chain would have less incentive to employ the best known practices to prevent these infections.

Pritzker Olsen is a national leader in ground beef E. coli litigation and we have collected millions for victims of E. coli O157:H7 poisoning, including those struck by HUS. To contact a ground beef E. coli lawyer at our firm, call 1-888-377-8900 (Toll Free) or complete our online contact form.  We provide free case consultations and can explain how you owe us nothing until we win your case.

Montclair’s recall of 53,000 pounds of ground beef products brings the total volume of  beef E. coli recalls to 298,000 pounds year to date in the U.S.

Montclair is located east of Los Angeles in San Bernardino County, California. E. coli testing by USDA inspection is what detected the problem.  These ground beef patties and other ground beef products were produced between the dates of May 3, 2010 through May 13, 2010, and were shipped to retailers and federal establishments for further processing in the Los Angeles metropolitan area.

No California E. coli outbreak has been reported, but individuals concerned about an illness should contact a physician. As of yet, the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service has not posted a retail distribution list to show where in California E. coli meat products from Montclair were distributed.

According to a review of federal records by food safety law firm Pritzker Olsen, more than 1
million pounds of ground beef and beef cuts intended for grinding were recalled from market in 2009 by USDA-inspected slaughter plants and processors. The largest of the 15 recalls covered 545,699 pounds of ground beef produced last fall by Fairbank Farms of Ashville, N.Y.

Multi-state E. coli outbreaks associated with these recalls killed at least three people and sickened at least 80,
according to the records. The outbreaks resulted in at least 34 hospitalizations and eight confirmed cases of life-threatening hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), a disease especially dangerous to children that causes kidney failure and many other serious health conditions.

It is a sad fact of life that meat processors selling adulterated products that harm or kill unsuspecting citizens often do whatever it takes to avoid responsibility for the harms and losses caused by their products.

Rather than admit responsibility, fix the problem and compensate victims, some companies torture law and logic by trying to fix blame on the consumer. Their argument is deceptively simple: “Everyone knows that hamburger is dangerous if not cooked to 160º; if you don’t cook it to the right temperature, it’s your own damn fault.”

These “blame game” tactics are misguided, particularly when the consumer/victim is made out to be the one at fault. That’s because meat products containing pathogens are considered adulterated for purposes of federal and state law (not to mention, common sense).  This means that for certain deadly pathogens like E. coli O157:H7 any number of cells, no matter how few, are prohibited – zero tolerance.

Thus, when a person is sickened or killed by E. coli O157:H7, the manufacturer of an adulterated product cannot avoid responsibility for the resulting harms and losses. Simply put, the law establishes the standard of care – zero tolerance – the violation of which constitutes negligence. In addition, under most states’ laws, a product that is sold containing pathogens is also considered “defective.” A food product is in a defective condition unreasonably dangerous if an ordinary consumer would not reasonably expect the product to contain the substance that caused the harm.

I’ve spent much of my career battling avaricious companies too stupid to realize the repugnant nature of responsibility avoidance and victim blame. That’s why it was so refreshing to see the following commentary (reprinted with permission of the author) from a meat industry trade source that is both thoughtful and well researched. Hats off to its author, William Hayes, of Argentine Beef Packers, S.A., a trade organization.  It  was recently published on the web in the Meat Trade News Daily (http://www.meattradenewsdaily.co.uk/news/261209/usa___the_beef_industry_has_shot_itself_in_the_foot_while_the_usda_watched.aspx):

USA – The beef industry has shot itself in the foot while the USDA watched

26 Dec 2009

No matter how many times I hear people blame victims for their ground beef-related E. coli O157:H7 infections, I continue to be surprised.  The comments usually follow a set structure.  Step one: the consumer should have known better.  “We all know that ground beef is dangerous!”  Step two: everyone knows that you have to cook ground beef until (insert pseudo-science here).  “You have to cook a burger until the juices run clear!”  Step three: self-affirmation.  “I’ve cooked burgers all my life and I have never been sick!”  There’s only one problem with these arguments: they are completely unfounded.  The federal government and courts recognized this fact many years ago; it’s now time for the general public to catch up.

In 2006, eighteen members of the Salem Lutheran Church in Longville, Minnesota became desperately ill after eating E. coli O157:H7-contaminated meatballs at a church potluck.  Due to their infections, one member died and another experienced acute kidney failure.  The victims of the outbreak subsequently filed a law suit against the makers and the sellers of the ground beef.  A year later, one of the defendants in the case, Nebraska Beef, filed a third-party complaint against the church in an attempt to place the blame for the illnesses on the victims.  The complaint specifically alleged that “the damages sustained by the Plaintiff[s], if any, [were] the direct and proximate result of the negligence and/or other fault for tortuous conduct of Third-Party Defendant Salem Lutheran Church.”

From a public relations standpoint, Nebraska Beef’s lawsuit against the church-goers was a complete disaster.  On June 8, 2008, the New York Times ran an article about Nebraska Beef’s legal maneuver entitled “Out of a Church Kitchen and Into the Courts.”  (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/08/business/08feed.html).  The article pointed out that the members of the Salem Lutheran Church were being blamed for their illnesses, despite the fact that the Minnesota Department of Health had stated that, in all likelihood, the ground beef used to make the meatballs was contaminated well before it was purchased by the church members.

The “volunteer church ladies,” as they were referred to in the article, took the same precautions while cooking the raw meat that most people would take.  To determine whether the meat was properly cooked, the church members had cut a few meatballs open to visually inspect the color of the inside.  They had not, however, used a meat thermometer to ensure that the internal temperature had reached 160 degrees.

So, aside from the obviously bad PR that results from suing a church, what was wrong with Nebraska Beef’s decision to sue the victims?  Isn’t the victim of an E. coli O157:H7 infection always to blame if she gets sick because she didn’t use a meat thermometer?  This can be a touchy issue, especially in situations like the Salem Lutheran Church case where the injuries suffered proved to be fatal.  It’s also an issue that comes up fairly often in cases of foodborne illness.

This issue begs one fundamental question: What constitutes “proper” cooking of ground beef?  After all, even if meat is contaminated, heat of a certain temperature will kill the harmful bacteria.  Should it matter that the beef was contaminated before it reached the consumer?  On the other hand, aren’t there people who prefer their ground beef rare or medium-rare?  Is a “rare” burger properly cooked, even though the internal temperature may not have reached 160 degrees?  Therein lies the quandary: “proper” cooking of meat is, and always was, a reference to visual appearance and texture, not to temperature.

The issue of proper cooking of ground beef became so fundamental in foodborne illness litigation that, in 1994, a federal court squarely addressed it in the case of Texas Food Industry Ass’n, et al. v. Espy.  In Espy, several supermarket and meat industry organizations sought an injunction against the USDA, attempting to prevent the agency from declaring E. coli O157:H7 an adulterant, and barring it from implementing an E. coli sampling program.  In denying the injunction, the court cited several reasons for allowing the USDA to declare E. coli O157:H7 an adulterant, one of which was the public’s perception of “proper” cooking of ground beef.  In its holding, the court stated:

[U]nlike other pathogens, it is not “proper” cooking but “thorough” cooking that is necessary to protect consumers from E. coli.  The evidence submitted by Defendants indicates that many Americans consider ground beef to be properly cooked rare, medium rare, or medium.  The evidence also indicated that E. coli contaminated ground beef cooked in such a manner may cause serious physical problems, including death.  Therefore, E. coli is a substance that renders “injurious to health” what many Americans believe to be properly cooked ground beef.

In allowing the USDA to declare E. coli O157:H7 an adulterant, the Espy court recognized the danger of the deadly bacteria and allowed the USDA to institute a zero-tolerance policy regarding the pathogen.  The nuanced discussion of proper cooking admitted a fact that the court knew just as well as everyone else: very few people regard cooking a hamburger as an exact science.  A consumer can walk into nearly any restaurant in this country and order a hamburger that is cooked rare.  In such a case, chances are slim to none that the restaurant kitchen staff carefully checked the internal temperature of the patty with a meat thermometer prior to serving the burger to their customers.
Despite the fact that a federal court has recognized the difficultly in saying that consumers should be able to mitigate the danger of tainted meat through “proper” cooking, I understand that some “blame the consumer” advocates may still disagree with the title of this article.  To those persons, perhaps it’s better to approach this dilemma not by looking at the consumer’s actions, but by looking at a manufacturer’s legal duties.

The first step towards understanding the duties of a ground beef manufacturer is to establish a baseline that I think that everyone can agree on: ground beef that contains E. coli O157:H7 is a defective product.  The USDA established as much when they declared E. coli O157:H7 an adulterant under federal law in 1994.  It makes sense from an intuitive standpoint as well.  A large meat company, such as Nebraska Beef, does not have a drawing room where they create blueprints detailing how to make ground beef patties that contain E coli O157:H7.  To the contrary, such companies spend a great deal of time and money calculating how to ensure that their products do not contain bacteria.  In other words, Nebraska Beef does not design their beef products to contain E. coli O157:H7, thus, any ground beef product that does contain the bacteria is deemed defective, both under internal standards and federal standards.

An understanding that ground beef that contains E. coli O157:H7 is defective is a key to realizing why Nebraska Beef’s attempt to shift blame to the Salem Lutheran Church was a moot point.  The law does not look kindly upon manufacturers of defective products that cause injuries to consumers.  Since the late 1800s, the American legal system has recognized that manufacturers of certain products are strictly liable for injuries resulting from the proper use of the products.  Strict liability means that the manufacturer will be held responsible for damage caused by their defective product, regardless of whether they put proper care into making the product.  Thus, if a meat company sells ground beef that contains a deadly pathogen, and that pathogen causes injuries to the purchaser of the ground beef, the meat company is liable, even if they tried their best to make sure the meat didn’t contain any harmful bacteria.

The concept of strict liability for manufacturers of defective products can perhaps be more easily understood with a quick analogy.  Let’s say an automaker sells a brand new, perfectly fine looking car to a loyal customer.  Unfortunately for the customer, there is a hairline crack in steering axle that has been there since the car was assembled.  When the car was sold, the manufacturer didn’t know the crack was there, nor did the dealer or the customer.  The customer drives the car off of the lot and onto the freeway.  Ten minutes later, as the car rounds a turn, the axle breaks, sending the car careening out of control and off a cliff.  Who’s liable?  Well in that case, it seems pretty intuitive.  The customer could not have been expected to inspect every inch of the car before he bought it, therefore the law says that the manufacturer is liable for the customer’s injuries, regardless of the fact that it didn’t mean to install a faulty steering axle.

The law treats manufacturers of beef products no differently than it treats the car manufacturer in the above example.  So long as a customer has not substantially altered a product and is using the product in the way that it was intended to be used (in the case of ground beef, cooking it and eating it), the manufacturer will be liable for the harm caused by any defects–whether the defect was a faulty axle or deadly bacteria.

With these examples in mind, we can finally tell the whole story of the volunteer church ladies from Salem Lutheran Church and understand why they were not to blame for their own injuries.  Nebraska Beef manufactured a product that the Minnesota Department of Health said, in all likelihood, was contaminated with E. coli O157:H7.  The federal government has recognized the danger of E. coli O157:H7, and has accordingly instituted a zero-tolerance policy for ground beef that contains the bacteria.  Nevertheless, the defective beef eluded inspectors and was sold to the church members.  The volunteer church members then formed the beef into meatballs and cooked it, using the meat in the normal manner in which one would use such a product.  They even visually checked the “doneness” of the product after cooking it.  When the members subsequently fell ill, Nebraska Beef became liable for the full costs of the emotional and physical injuries that resulted because they shipped a poisoned product, plain and simple.

In short, were it not for Nebraska Beef’s sale of defective ground beef, the members of the Salem Lutheran Church would not have suffered the injuries that they did, regardless of the cooking techniques that they employed.

As is the case with any abbreviated summary of the law, there are about a thousand nuances that were left out of the above discussion.  The two primary concepts, however, still ring true: (1) the USDA has a zero-tolerance policy for E. coli O157:H7 in ground beef, and (2) companies that manufacture defective products are liable for the injuries caused by the use of their products.  To be certain, these concepts should not encourage consumers to abandon all safety precautions.  Indeed, many states allow a jury to apportion a percentage of fault to a plaintiff, sometimes even nullifying the plaintiff’s claim if they are found even one percent at fault.  More importantly, however, a purchaser of ground beef should always follow cooking procedures that are designed to kill any harmful bacteria.  (For more on proper cooking procedures, see
http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2009/08/ground-beef-the-importance-of-safe-handling-practices-and-accurate-final-product-temperature/).

Mitigating factors aside, it is crucial that the American public recognizes that the victim is never to blame when he or she is injured by a defect in a product that was used for its normal purpose and that looked perfectly fine.  The public must recognize this out of respect to the victims, such as the members of the Salem Lutheran Church in Longville, Minnesota, and in recognition of the over one hundred years of case law that shaped this concept in the American legal system.

Naysayers and cynics will always argue that companies should not be held responsible for the subsequent use of their products.  They’ll argue that there is no way a company can possibly make all products completely safe.  They’ll also argue that companies shouldn’t be held liable to pay for injuries suffered by only a tiny percentage of their customers.  To them I only have this to say: when you are injured because your steering axle has a hairline crack or because your food contains deadly pathogens, the rest of us will remember exactly who to blame.  I’m sure you’ll gladly take your injuries in stride.  After all, as I know you’ll remind us, if you would have been just a bit more careful, you wouldn’t have been harmed by those defective products, right?

In the current steak E. coli outbreak, National Steak and Poultry, the processor of the blade-tenderized, non-intact steaks that have sickened people  in at least 8 states, should immediately compensate outbreak victims for medical expenses, pain and suffering and lost wages.

For more information, please contact Attorney Fred Pritzker.

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.

An announcement from Fry’s said store-packaged ground beef was made from cuts supplied by Colorado-based JBS Swift Meat Co., the beef packer associated with an outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 that has sickened at least 23 people in nine states. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that at least 12 of the victims have been hospitalized, including two who suffered a serious complication known as HUS, or hemolytic uremic syndrome, a type of kidney failure that also attacks a person’s red blood cells.

Fry’s is urgining its customers to go through their freezers to check for sell-by dates ranging from April 27 to June 1.

A Kroger lawsuit has been filed by national food safety law firm Pritzker Olsen Attorneys on behalf of an E. coli O157:H7 victim from a 2008 outbreak tied to contaminated beef products sold by the retailer. Our firm is one of the few in the country practicing extensively in the area of foodborne illness litigation. We are involved in practically every major outbreak of foodborne illness and have collected tens of millions for victims of food poisoning.

If you or a loved one have been sickened after eating beef products purchased from Fry’s, Food 4 Less, Kroger or Smith’s Food and Drug stores, contact an E. coli attorney at Pritzker Olsen. Founder and president Fred Pritzker is considered a leading expert on foodborne illness by national and regional media and he has been an outspoken critic of U.S. food safety laws and food inspection programs. Our firm has the experience, resources and skills to handle your case and we don’ t get paid unless you do.

To contact the firm, call 1-888-377-8900 (Toll Free) or complete one of our online forms to receive a free case consultation from an attorney.

The contaminated ground beef that caused the illnesses was all purchased from 4 grocery stores in the west metro area since April 12. Any fresh ground beef, fresh or frozen meatloaf, and ground chili meat is purchased at a Lunds or Byerly’s grocery after April 7 could possibly be contaminated and should not be eaten. If someone did eat possibly contaminated meat, any extra meat should be saved for possible evidence.

E. coli can be killed through proper cooking if the meat reaches an internal temperature of 160 degrees F, but it is easy to cross contaminate food if one is not careful with the preparation. So it is best to dispose of the possibly contaminated meat products.