Recalls of ‘potentially lethal’ US meat and poultry nearly double since 2013

• 20 Jan, 2019
• United States

The number of meat and poultry products recalled in the US for potentially life-threatening health hazards has nearly doubled since 2013, according to a report by a consumer watchdog group.

The US Department of Agriculture logged 97 meat recalls for serious health hazards in 2018, ranging from 12 million pounds of raw beef that made close to 250 people ill with salmonella to the withdrawal of 174,000 pounds of chicken wraps for possible contamination with listeria.

These “Class 1” recalls – for conditions the USDA deems “a health hazard situation in which there is a reasonable probability that eating the food will cause health problems or death” – are up from 53 in 2013, the report by the US PIRG Education Fund said.

“The most dangerous types of meat and poultry recalls are on the rise,” said Adam Garber, who co-authored the report. “Whether you like hamburger or chicken, more and more dangerous meat is reaching your house.”

Yet meat industry leaders and many food watchdog groups say that the increase in recalls may be a sign that the regulatory system is working as it should be. The report acknowledges that advances in food safety technology, such as the use of whole genome sequencing, may be making it easier to detect foodborne illness.

“This is showing that the regulatory agencies are catching things,” said Jerold Mande, a professor of nutrition science at Tufts University in Massachusetts, who served as a US deputy undersecretary of food safety during the Obama administration. “It’s a flashing red light on the dashboard that you have to look at and ask: why is that occurring?”

Mande said meat safety in the US had clearly improved since the 1990s.

But he and other experts said there was more that could be done to reduce the estimated 48 million foodborne illnesses, 128,000 hospitalisations and 3,000 deaths that are still caused by food contaminants each year, according to the US Center for Disease Control.

The report criticised the US food safety system for the fact that antibiotic-resistant strains of salmonella, which sicken thousands of people each year,are not considered an adulterant in US meat products.

“Even if beef processors find salmonella in their meat, they can continue selling it until there’s a major disease outbreak,” said the group’s report.

The report called for the federal government to prohibit the sale of meat containing certain antibiotic-resistant strains of salmonella. It also called for tougher enforcement of existing meat safety laws.

Eric Mittenthal, a spokesman for the North American Meat Institute which represents the meat industry, stated that salmonella is a natural bacteria and getting rid of all of it would be impossible. He said testing data indicates that meat is actually safer today than ever.

“No one wants to eliminate bacteria on meat products more than the companies who produce and sell them,” he said in a written statement. “But we also believe it is important to support policies that will work and don’t lead people to believe that ‘zero’ salmonella is possible on a raw product.”

According to Dr Douglas Powell, a former food safety professor in Canada and the US, who now publishes the food safety site barfblog, the best thing consumers can do is to use a thermometer to make sure they are heating their meat enough to kill any dangerous bacteria.

“The biggest risk is not eating at all,” he said. “The next biggest is eating too much. But food is something we should enjoy with our children – not something we should have a lot of neuroses over.”

In all, the US PIRG report found that general food recalls increased by 10% in the US between 2013 and 2018. The number of recalls of produce items and processed food, which are handled separately from meats by the Food and Drug Administration, remained fairly steady, with a 2% rise.

But some of the 2018 recalls of non-meat products have been devastating to the food industry – including the recalls of E coli-contaminated Romaine lettuce, which killed five and sickened more than 200, and Ritz Crackers that were possibly salmonella-tainted.

Bill Marler, a food safety lawyer who has become famous for regularly suing food companies on behalf of food poisoning victims, said his office had been laying off lawyers in recent years – especially since there had been a reduced number of E coli cases. But he said, in 2018, there were so many problems that he had to add three lawyers and five staff members to his firm.

“If Bill Marler is hiring more lawyers that is a bad sign for the food industry,” he said.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/18/us-meat-poultry-recalls-nearly-double-since-2013