April 08, 2003
USDA Official: Food Inspectors Boosting Efforts to Block Contamination, Terrorism
LINCOLN, Neb. — Federal food inspectors continue to strengthen their inspection and prevention efforts in response to the twin threats of foodborne illness and the potential for terrorism aimed at the nation's food supply, a deputy undersecretary for the U.S. Department of Agriculture said Monday.
Merle Pierson, USDA's deputy undersecretary for food safety, was keynote speaker at the Second Governor's Conference on Ensuring Meat Safety, which began here Monday and ends today (April 8). The conference, organized by E. coli researchers at the University of Nebraska, drew about 250 university scientists, students and government and industry representatives.
Nebraska Gov. Mike Johanns, who welcomed conference participants, said ensuring a safe food supply is a nationwide concern, but is especially important to Nebraska, a leading beef producing and processing state.
"We must strive to ensure the public has the best quality food available," the governor said.
Pierson agreed that food safety is "certainly a high priority for all stakeholders in the beef industry." USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service plays a key role, inspecting products that represent about one-third of all consumer spending on food, he said.
The agency has been restructured and refocused in the last couple of years. These changes were in response both to highly publicized outbreaks of foodborne illnesses and increased vigilance toward the potential deliberate contamination of the nation's food supply by terrorists.
Pierson said he meets regularly with representatives of the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security, the CIA, FBI and Federal Emergency Management Agency – "the types of meetings I didn't expect to be at when I came to FSIS."
No specific threat to the food supply has been identified, but FSIS has studied the likeliest terrorism targets within the farm-to-table food supply system, Pierson said. The agency is using that assessment to focus both its 7,600 inspectors and its labs to better handle the risk. The effort also includes 20 new import inspectors added earlier this year to increase surveillance and inspections of food entering the United States from abroad.
FSIS also has been on the front lines of preventing foodborne illnesses caused by organisms such as E. coli O157:H7 and Listeria and responding to outbreaks. Among the steps the agency has taken: increased coordination with other public health agencies; increased public outreach and education; and changes in the safety protocols required of food processors.
"We are not in Washington, D.C., trying to set a new record on the size and number of recalls," Pierson said. "What you're seeing is companies are being more vigilant; we are being more vigilant."
One of the most famous recalls – of E. coli-contaminated ground beef processed at Hudson Foods in Columbus, Neb. – led the Nebraska Legislature in 1998 to appropriate $1.25 million over five years to support intensive NU research on the bacteria.
Johanns praised the partnership between the university, state government and the cattle industry to study E. coli and concentrate on finding ways to limit it on farms and feedlots to reduce the odds of it reaching consumers.
"Over the past five years, there have been many exciting findings" by scientists nationwide, he said. The research results shared during this conference are important to the future of food safety.
Some of North America’s leading experts on E. coli O157:H7 are presenting their research findings at the two-day scientific conference. The conference was designed to provide a venue for scientists to outline what they’ve learned about E. coli, discuss challenges and examine future needs.
Monday morning, Mike Doyle, a food microbiologist who heads the University of Georgia's Center for Food Safety and an internationally recognized E. coli expert, provided an overview of O157:H7 ecology. Doyle summarized findings from numerous studies worldwide.
Scientists have extensively studied O157:H7 and identified several promising strategies to control the bacteria in cattle, and the USDA launched testing of ground beef for E. coli at processing plants and retail outlets, Doyle said, but "there's no silver bullet."
"It's going to take a combination of intervention strategies to reduce E. coli," Doyle said. "We're going to go back to the farm to reduce O157:H7 infections. We can't just test beef."
Controlling or eliminating O157:H7 contamination in cattle manure is likely to have a greater influence on reducing human infections than any other control strategies, he said. NU's research team is among several scientific teams focusing on finding ways to control E. coli in feedlot cattle to reduce the odds that they'll carry it into processing plants.
The conference is funded by a USDA food safety grant and the institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources and Department of Food Science and Technology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
4/8/03-DM Robert Hutkins - Ph.D.
Food Science and Technology Professor (402)472-2820
 
Dan Moser IANR News & Photography Coordinator (402) 472-3007
Department:
Food Science and Technology
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