By William D. Marler

Dozens of Americans poisoned by this summer's nationwide E. coli outbreak were barely home from the local hospital before there were murmurings afoot: "If only they had cooked their hamburger properly."

"It is not the failure of the meat industry," reads one e-mail that crossed my desk recently. "It is the fault of the parent who handled and cooked the hamburger that was fed to the child."

You hear it from meat industry. You hear it from the grocery stores. You even hear it from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which is supposed to ensure that food is safe before it reaches the supermarket.

Hogwash.

Or, rather, hog unwashed.

As a lawyer who has spent 10 years fighting for compensation for victims of food-borne poisons, I have learned a few things about E. coli.

Remember, the E. coli that sickened these people nationwide comes from one place - cow poop. Yes, that is what was in the hamburger that these families cooked. How many of us know that? How many of us even want to know that?

Yes, thorough cooking will kill E. coli that finds its way into ground beef. But the smarter attack is to prevent contamination in the first place. Processors need to clean up their act, and the federal government has to inspect meat and quickly clamp down when contamination takes place. Large purchasers of hamburger (fast food industry, government) need to refuse to buy from processors unless they have the highest food safety standards.

Most Americans believe that the USDA already does this. At least they believed so until this summer, when the agency was thoroughly embarrassed by a nationwide outbreak of E. coli traced to meat that had its stamp of approval.

The meat industry also must shoulder a large part of the blame. The ConAgra plant in Colorado that produced the E. coli contaminated product had positive E. coli tests for over a month, and kept on producing. I do not know about you, but if I made a mistake every day for a month, I think I would try something different.

This summer's victims, most them small children, and their parents, made the mistake of taking that USDA stamp seriously. And they paid heavily for that error. At least 10 of the victims, mostly youngsters, ended up in hospitals. Some spent days hooked up to kidney dialysis machines after their kidneys failed. Some face long-term risks of kidney failure and related consequences. It appears that there may be an Ohio death linked to this outbreak as well.

The Center for Disease Control estimates that 76 million Americans get sick each year from food-borne illnesses. Fortunately, most of those illnesses are relatively minor, in part due to the miracles of the human immune system. But some get terribly sick (estimated 350,000 hospitalized). Some of them die (estimated 5,000). And they are mostly innocent kids and older people, whose immune systems are more vulnerable to attack.

Yet Americans maintain extraordinary faith (I say misplaced) in their nation's food supply. According to a study by the Partnership for Food Safety Education, fewer than half of Americans know that fresh fruits and vegetables can contain harmful bacteria. Only 25 percent believe that eggs and dairy products can be contaminated. Most consumers believe that food pathogens can be seen or smelled - they can not. Only 25 percent of consumers know that cooking temperatures are critical to food safety. And even fewer know that food should be refrigerated promptly after cooking.

Consumers are being blamed, but most lack the knowledge or tools to properly protect themselves and their children. The FDA has stated that "unlike other pathogens, E. coli O157:H7 has no margin for error. It takes only a microscopic amount to cause serious illness or even death." Over the last few years our Government and the Meat Industry have repeatedly told us to cook hamburger until there is no pink. Yet, recent university and USDA studies show meat can turn brown before it is actually "done." Now the consumer is urged to use a thermometer to test the internal temperature of the meat.

Also, who notices the little labels on meat that you buy in the store? The ones that tell you to cook the meat to 160 degrees - of course they also say USDA inspected too. The labels do not say "THE USDA INSPECTION MEANS NOTHING. THIS PRODUCT MAY CONTAIN A PATHOGENIC BACTERIA THAT CAN SEVERELY SICKEN OR KILL YOU AND/OR YOUR CHILD. HANDLE THIS PRODUCT WITH EXTREME CARE." One wonders why the meat industry does not want a label like that on your pound of hamburger. It knows that the label is truthful. Do you think it might be concerned that Moms and Dads would stop buying it?

Most of these people sickened in this outbreak had never heard of E. coli, but there were exceptions. One victim's father is a professional restaurant inspector, and he was positive he cooked the meat thoroughly for his son. Another is a former police detective, who was equally sure she cooked the meat. Still another was a hardworking mom, whose "crime" it was to make a pot of spaghetti sauce for her son's Little League team.

Blaming consumers for undercooking their kids' hamburger does a terrible disservice to hardworking parents already coping with sickened children.

Americans have a right to a nontoxic food supply. We can't afford to delegate food safety to harried moms and dads taking their kids out for hamburgers or to teenagers working in a fast food joint. The industry that makes billions selling us meat can and must step up to the task of cleaning up its own act. And the federal government, which promises to inspect meat, must deliver on that promise.