The World’s Safest Food 9inspected for hygiene and visible signs of disease. Even if meat was
suspected of harboring pathogens, no one ever declared it was adulter-
ated—until E. coli came along.
In 99 , a new FSIS administrator, Michael Taylor, announced at
a meat industry convention that the agency was not meeting the pub-
lic’s expectations. Henceforward, E. coli in ground beef would be con-
sidered an adulterant—making its sale illegal. With some eight billion
pounds of ground beef produced annually, the industry sued. But FSIS
was prepared, and the courts upheld the new standard; a new benchmark
for food safety had been established.
Two-plus decades later, E. coli (O:H and six closely related sero-
types) remain the only pathogenic microbes still considered adulter-
ants in food—and only if they are found in ground beef. Companies
have increased processing line speeds to as much as 0, 00 poultry birds,
,300 hogs, and 390 cattle per hour. Determining what is safe has shifted
toward controlling potential hazards. Instead of the government, FSIS
has adopted programs where companies themselves now assume more
inspection and testing responsibilities for pathogens.
One such FSIS program for hogs promised to demonstrate that
increasing line speed did not compromise food safety. Then, in 20 3,
USDA’s Office of Inspector General took a closer look. The report
pointed out that since the program’s inception fifteen years earlier, no
study had ever been conducted to determine whether food safety had
measurably improved. Its auditors had inspected thirty plants, includ-
ing one processing up to nineteen thousand hogs per day. The report
found that “enforcement policies do not deter swine slaughter plants
from becoming repeat violators of food safety regulations.”
Each year, FSIS is responsible for safeguarding “the processing
of more than 0. million livestock carcasses and 9.2 billion poul-
try carcasses.” Printed on packages of meat products in supermarkets
are the words “inspected for wholesomeness.” What the label does not
disclose, and consumers may not know, is that “wholesomeness” does
not mean free of pathogens.
In a perfect world, meat ready for purchase would be free of patho-
gens. Some strains of Salmonella, for example, are highly antibiotic-
resistant. But because we do not live in a perfect world, and the risk of