Marler Blog - The US Beef Supply is Safe? - Comments http://www.marlerblog.com/ Food Poisoning Lawyer & Attorney : Bill Marler : Marler Clark en Copyright 2012 Wed, 16 May 2012 05:24:13 -0800 Wed, 16 May 2012 05:24:13 -0800 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/?v=4.32-en http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Walt Hill As Boyle said, the fact that the incidence of E. coli O157:H7 in samples of raw ground beef tested by FSIS has declined 80% since 1999 is a good thing--it is only part of the story. The majority (if not all) of the large producers carry out a considerable amount of testing but according to FSIS policy and FSIS's interpretation of HACCP, FSIS does not test a lot until it has passed the company's pre-shipment review. So, if a lot the company has tested is positive, FSIS never gets to test it. FSIS tests primarily only lots that the company has found negative.

This brings up a lot of issues regarding the efficiency and efficacy of testing. Without getting into a lot of statistics, the FSIS incidence of positives is around 0.2%. If so, they would have to test about 1,500 samples per lot of ground beef to be 95% sure it is not contaminated. And this assumes that the E. coli O157:H7 cells are randomly distributed throughout the product which is not true.

Therefore, a negative test means virtually nothing. The amount of raw ground beef testing that FSIS does really doesn't do much to assure the product is safe but what it DOES do, is coerce the producers into do a lot of testing themselves and to try to produce a safe product within the limitations of their corporate goals and business plan and commitment to quality and safety assurance.

So to comment on Raymond's remark--the US food supply is one of the safest in world unless you or someone you know gets sick.

]]> http://www.marlerblog.com/lawyer-oped/the-us-beef-supply-is-safe/#7575 http://www.marlerblog.com/lawyer-oped/the-us-beef-supply-is-safe/#7575 Lawyer Op-Ed Sat, 06 Oct 2007 11:00:18 -0800 bmarler@marlerclark.com (Bill Marler)