BEEF TRADE ON TRAIL OF ELUSIVE E. COLI

LOUISE KRAMER

CHICAGO -- A beef industry task force has raised a sense of urgency about increasing reports of food-borne illness linked to the potentially fatal bacteria E. coli 0157:H7 in ground beef, and has developed a multi-point agenda to address the problem.

That agenda, which comes with a price tag of $4.5 million annually for the next three to five years, was presented Aug. 12 during the annual meeting here of the National Live Stock and Meat Board.

Now, the task force says, not enough is known about this particularly lethal strain of E. coli bacteria, and not enough measures have been pinpointed, beyond cooking ground beef to high internal temperatures and irradiation, to combat the problem.

Central to the task force recommendations is a call for all segments of the meat industry, including packers, processors, retailers and food service operators, to develop a Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point system (HACCP).

An HACCP system, similar to that proposed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the seafood industry, would be a food safety program to identify and monitor critical checkpoints from farm to table wherever contamination may occur.

"If we have contamination we have to have a process in line to eliminate it," said J.O. Reagan, the task force spokesman and director of product technology research for the Meat Board. "We not only have to have good systems. We know sometimes contamination is an integral part of life. We know we have to learn to control it.

"We need to be able to manage it all the way through the chain. There's just so much about this organism that we don't know. We don't know what all the reservoirs are," he said. "There have to be other sources. We need to just totally increase or knowledge of the organism."

In addition to HACCP systems, other key items on the agenda include calls for:

·-New research to pinpoint E. coli reservoirs and to develop technologies to kill or reduce pathogens.

·-Government approval of antimicrobial carcass rinses.

·-Government approval for irradiation of beef.

·-Research to develop tests to quickly determine the presence of the bacteria.

·-Development of food safety education programs for primary and secondary schools as well as for adult consumers.

The task force recommended that the retail industry contribute $500,000 of the $4.5 million annually targeted to accomplish this agenda.

Reagan said retail is a crucial link in protecting the public from food-borne illness. "Retailers play a big role because they are the closest link to the consumer," he said. "We have to educate them on food safety and safe handling.

"Each person in the chain, including the consumer, has their role to play in food safety," Reagan said. "We feel it's important to educate these groups. They have to know what HACCP means, and how to keep it in control."

The task force, created by the National Live Stock and Meat Board at its annual meeting a year ago, is composed of 10 members representing different parts of the meat business. Members include Ata Broudi, vice president for corporate quality assurance of Vons Cos., Los Angeles; James Lochner, vice president for technical services of IBP, Dakota City, Neb., and Robert Seward II, staff director of McDonald's Corp., Oak Park, Ill.

While the task force recommended FDA approval for beef to be treated with low-level radiation to eliminate bacteria, Reagan said he does not view the process as the final answer to the problem. "We're going to have to overcome quality issues, off colors and taste and packaging problems," he said, referring to packaging used for irradiated poultry, which, he added, has not been well accepted by consumers.

"Radiation is effective to kill pathogens," he said. "It is a tool we need to investigate."

Reagan, at a press conference called to release the task force's recommendations, said much needs to be done to manage E. coli.

"We need to develop detection tests. Now we're looking at a presumptive test. It's not enough. We need traceback capabilities back one more step. We need to give the government all the help we can to change from a sight-see-smell system to a HACCP system," he said, referring the government's visual inspection system that has been in place for years in the nation's slaughterhouses.

Calls are being made for the Federal Government to mandate more modern inspection systems based on microbial analysis.

The next step for the task force is to present its findings to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That is set to be done in the coming weeks, Reagan said. One representative from the Agriculture Department, Danny Lazenby, foreign program officer for the department's Food Safety and Inspection Service, sat on the panel.

The task force identified nine segments of the meat chain, and included points of action to be taken within each segment. Those segments, in addition to retail, include preharvest, beef carcass conversion, beef carcass break-up and trim generation, ground beef processing, food service, public health and consumer education, and intervention strategies.