WASHINGTON, D.C. – March 18, 2010) S.T.O.P. – Safe Tables Our Priority and victims of foodborne illness called upon the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to recognize as adulterants six other potentially deadly types of E. coli bacteria in addition to the notorious E. coli O157:H7 that is currently classified as an adulterant. All seven strains are known to cause devastating human illness and are transmitted to humans through feces-contaminated beef products.
“The USDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have known for decades of the public health risks posed by non-O157 strains of E. coli,” said S.T.O.P. President Nancy Donley, whose only child, Alex, died from E. coli O157 poisoning in 1993. “Yet, 10 years after mandating that public health laboratories report positive test results for these strains from infected people, nothing has been done to prevent meat contaminated with these strains from entering into commerce in the first place. As a result, children continue to die horrible deaths after innocently eating their lunch.”
E. coli O157:H7 was declared an adulterant in ground beef in 1994 in the aftermath of an outbreak that sickened more than 700 people and killed at least four. The CDC has since identified six additional strains of shiga-toxin producing E. coli (STEC)O26, O111, O103, O121, O45 and O145that are associated with severe illness and death. Just like E. coli O157:H7, these other STEC strains get into the nation’s beef supply when cattle feces contaminate the meat during slaughter and processing.
“We ask that the USDA make another bold move, as it did in 1994, by adding these other pathogenic E. coli strains to the list of meat adulterants now,” said S.T.O.P. Executive Director Donna Rosenbaum.
At a lunch time demonstration outside USDA headquarters, Rosenbaum, Donley and other victim members of S.T.O.P. held a vigil and demanded that USDA enact health-based strategies to prevent all types of E. coli- contaminated beef from reaching consumers’ tables. This includes:
Recognizing as adulterants the six additional E. coli strains.
Expanding the definition of adulterant to include E .coli O157:H7 when it is in any type of beef, not just ground beef or beef intended for ground beef.
Implementing better ways of tracing all STEC outbreaks to prevent widespread illness and deaths.
Asking Congress for mandatory recall authority for USDA. Currently, all food recalls by government agencies are voluntary and issued by the companies responsible.
According to the CDC, an estimated 76 million Americans become sick from foodborne pathogens every year and some 325,000 are hospitalized, of which 5,000many of them childrendie.
Also at the demonstration calling for tighter USDA regulations was S.T.O.P. member Dana Boner, of Monroe, Iowa, whose daughter, Kayla, died of E. coli O111 in 2007 at age 14. She was joined by Linda Abrahamsen, of Somerville, Mass., who missed out on much of her childhood, developed Bell’s Palsy and recently needed a kidney transplantall because she ate an E. coli O157-laden cheeseburger at age 6 nearly 20 years ago. Speaking at the protest, too, was Trissi Bennett, of Great Falls, Va., who nearly lost her life and those of her twin newborns after eating contaminated ready-to-eat meat 10 years ago. They survived, but her son, Luke, who participated in the demonstration, will live at risk for seizures all of his life.
“USDA policy makes it impossible to find the food that killed Kayla,” said Boner. “You can’t find what you’re not looking for, and USDA needs to start actively looking for these pathogens. It’s too late for Kayla, but not too late for others.”
In 2007 and 2008, USDA held public meetings on the issue, but has failed to enact any prevention-based strategy for these pathogens. Instead, USDA declared that it would first conduct testing of ground beef and components to determine the extent of non-O157 STEC and implement a regulatory program, if needed.
“While S.T.O.P. has no objection to conducting a baseline study, we do object to the delay in declaring these additional E. coli strains as adulterants in beef,” said Donley. “We have been urging USDA for years to enact health-based prevention strategies for these killer strains of E. coli. S.T.O.P. supports many families, like Dana’s, whose loved ones have died or become ill from non-O157 STEC’s. The American public is tired-and getting sick-from waiting.”
Source: USDA