990343 Salmonella Rate Falls But Still High in Turkey

Washington - Salmonella contamination in U.S. meat and poultry fell sharply in 1998 from the previous year, but more than one-third of the ground turkey sampled was still tainted, the U.S. Agriculture Department said.

The decline was touted as evidence by the USDA that its new program giving individual meat and poultry plants greater responsibility for monitoring food safety is working well.

Salmonella ranks as one of the most common food contaminants, causing diarrhea and nausea. An estimated 3.8 million Americans are sickened by salmonella annually.

Tests of ground turkey in 1998 showed a 27 percent decline in the rate of salmonella contamination from the previous year, said Catherine Woteki, USDA undersecretary for food safety.

But even after the improvement, more than 36 percent of ground turkey sampled by the USDA was still tainted, a level that consumer groups contend is far too high.

Woteki announced the test results at a hearing held by the House Agriculture Appropriations subcommittee on the Clinton Administration's proposed food safety budget for fiscal 2000.

The USDA, which regulates meat and poultry products, is seeking an extra $34.8 million for food safety research, testing, and development of new preventive technology.

Among its varied food safety duties, the USDA spends about $10 million annually to test meat and poultry for salmonella, E. coli, and seven other foodborne pathogens, she said. Most such harmful bacterias can be destroyed with thorough cooking.

Chicken contaminated with salmonella dropped more than 45 percent last year, she said. Nearly 11 percent of chickens tested had salmonella, compared to 20 percent in 1997.

Tests of ground beef samples showed a 36 percent fall in the rate of salmonella contamination in 1998. The bug was found in about 4.8 percent of the ground beef sampled by the USDA.

The USDA contends that the decline in the salmonella contamination is because the 3,000 largest U.S. meat and poultry plants are taking more responsibility for identifying danger points and checking for problems, Woteki said. That is a change from the USDA's old system of telling plants how to prevent food contamination and using meat inspectors solely to sniff and poke carcasses on the production line.

“Our strategy relies upon voluntary adoption of quality control programs at the production level,” Woteki said. “These data, while preliminary, indicate that the administration's science-based inspection system has already had a significant effect on the safety of food American families eat.”

The shift to a voluntary system, with oversight by federal meat inspectors, has been criticized by the inspectors for giving plants too much leeway. The inspectors' union sued the USDA last year to stop the department from shifting jobs away from physical inspections along the production line to sampling, testing and auditing plant results.

“I have a hard time understanding the basis for their lawsuit,” Tom Billy, administrator of USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service, told the panel. “We think we can make better use of our resources to improve food safety for consumers.”

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