SUIT FILED TO HALT STORE MEAT INSPECTION

JOYCE BARRETT Additional reporting: JOANNA RAMEY

WASHINGTON (FNS) -- Charging that grocers could be bankrupted by a new government program to conduct random tests for E. coli in ground beef, seven supermarket and meat industry groups are seeking a permanent injunction to stop the tests.

The request for the injunction was filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Austin, Texas, by the American Meat Institute, National Grocers Association, National-American Wholesale Grocers' Association, Food Marketing Institute, Southwest Meat Association, Texas Food Industry Association, and Texas Retailers Association Food Council.

"The food industry strongly believes the government is proceeding recklessly with a bureaucratic policy that is unfair and

unwise," John R. Block, president of NAWGA, said at a press conference. "Beyond being unfair, [the Food Safety and Inspection Service's] new retail meat sampling policy is unlawful because it has been imposed without the notice-and-comment period that is required under the law."

Under the program, which began last month, if inspectors find meat contaminated with E. coli 0157:H7 at retail, supermarkets would be forced to recall the meat, and would be subject to criminal liabilities.

"The reputation of the supermarket will be irreparably damaged," said Thomas K. Zaucha, president and chief executive officer of the National Grocers Association, and "the business financially ruined."

The new inspection program was unveiled Sept. 29 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture acting under Michael R. Taylor, secretary for food safety and FSIS administrator. It was launched Oct. 17. During the program's first two weeks, no contaminated product was found, according to USDA. Information on the number of stores inspected was not immediately available.

To gather samples, USDA inspectors arrive at stores unannounced, talk to store management about their mission and take a pound of ground meat to test.

The meat is then flown overnight in cooled containers to one of three FSIS laboratories for testing within a day. If a preliminary, 48-hour test registers positive for E. coli, the store from which the sample came will be notified and a second test, which takes another four days, will be undertaken.

Timothy Hammonds, president and chief executive officer of FMI, said the results of the sampling program -- showing whether the meat sold through a supermarket was contaminated -- would not be available until after other products from the same case were already bought and used by consumers.

"We need a comprehensive program that prevents the problem before it reaches the consumer," said Hammonds.

USDA's sampling program, he noted, requires two days for preliminary results and six days for confirmed results. By testing meat at the retail level, consumers might be encouraged to relax their cooking safety precautions, Hammonds said.

"Monitoring for E. coli in supermarkets is much too late in the distribution system," he said.

Under the new random sampling program, USDA officials will notify the public of the sampling if the first test comes back positive. If the second test registers positive for E. coli, USDA will notify state and local health officials and the store where the sample was taken. A public notice will then be released recalling the lot of meat and any raw meat products from with the positive sample came.

The sampling program is being run by the USDA's FSIS as part of an overall meat and poultry food-safety agenda initiated by the Clinton administration two years ago, following a major outbreak of illness in the Pacific Northwest stemming from undercooked contaminated ground beef. The industry has condemned the program since it was announced in September, and last week decried it as "unfair and unwise."

In an attempt to appease the industry, Taylor sent letters to the plaintiffs, dated Nov. 1, saying USDA would allow additional steps at the processing level to prevent contamination earlier in the system.

Specifically, USDA will permit anti-microbial rinses and hot water rinses after carcasses have passed inspection and before going into a cooler without requiring the rinses to go through the agency's usual approval process. The hot water rinses, Taylor said, have been shown to be effective in reducing levels of E. coli contamination.

J. Patrick Boyle, president of AMI, however, said USDA's approval of rinses was welcome, especially since AMI has advocated such steps, but it did not deter the industry from its aim to stop random sampling.

Zaucha told reporters that USDA is violating the Federal Meat Inspection Act by changing a long-standing policy. In that policy, he said, meat containing pathogens that cooking can eliminate is not considered adulterated product. He also noted that E. coli is present in only 0.2% of the beef supply.