USDA Announces New Safeguards to Protect Consumers from Foodborne Illness

3 May 2012 --- The U.S. Department of Agriculture has announced a series of prevention-based policy measures that will better protect consumers from foodborne illness in meat and poultry products. These measures will significantly improve the ability of both plants and USDA to trace contaminated food materials in the supply chain, to act against contaminated products sooner, and to establish the effectiveness of food safety systems.

"The additional safeguards we are announcing today will improve our ability to prevent foodborne illness by strengthening our food safety infrastructure," said USDA Under Secretary for Food Safety Dr. Elisabeth Hagen. "Together, these measures will provide us with more tools to protect our food supply, resulting in stronger public health protections for consumers."

USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) intend to implement new traceback measures in order to control pathogens earlier and prevent them from triggering foodborne illnesses and outbreaks. FSIS is proposing to launch traceback investigations earlier and identify additional potentially contaminated product when the Agency finds E. coli O157:H7 through its routine sampling program.

When FSIS receives an indication of contamination through presumptive positive test results for E. coli, the Agency will move quickly to identify the supplier of the product and any processors who received contaminated product from the supplier, once confirmation is received. This proposed change in policy gives FSIS the opportunity to better prevent contaminated product from reaching consumers. Learn more about the traceback proposed change in policy.

FSIS is implementing three provisions included in the Food, Conservation and Energy Act of 2008 (the 2008 Farm Bill). The new regulations, published as a Final Rule and directed by Congress, require establishments to prepare and maintain recall procedures, to notify FSIS within 24 hours that a meat or poultry product that could harm consumers has been shipped into commerce, and to document each reassessment of their hazard control and critical control point (HACCP) system food safety plans. Learn more about the Farm Bill provisions.

FSIS is announcing the availability of guidance to plants on the steps that are necessary to establish that their HACCP food safety systems will work as designed to control the food safety hazards that they confront. This process, called "validation," enables companies to ensure that their food safety systems are effective for preventing foodborne illness. This notice announces that the draft guidance document is available for comment. Learn more about HACCP validation draft guidance.

CSPI Food Safety Director Caroline Smith DeWaal said the measures are ‘positive’: “Rapid traceback is essential for reducing the impact of E. coli outbreaks, and protects both consumers and the meat industry. When it comes to testing for E. coli, it makes sense to start traceback procedures upon a presumptively positive test result, and not lose valuable time waiting for a confirmation. USDA should do the same for antibiotic-resistant strains of Salmonella in meat products, which just last year hospitalized nearly 50 people and sickened 167.”

However, she believes that more action is still needed: “The agency should require retail beef grinders, including supermarkets, to keep records of everything they grind. As we saw last year in the outbreak linked to ground beef from Hannaford grocery stores, when supermarket chains grind beef from multiple sources, it makes it much harder for investigators to track down the source of an outbreak.”