 991245 Salmonella Tests to Be Enforced at All Meat PlantsDecember 20, 1999 Washington - A Texas firm locked in a legal battle with federal food safety regulators over its ground beef plant now faces a Jan. 3 deadline to get its slaughter plant cleaned up or have it shut down, the USDA said. In setting the deadline for Supreme Beef Processing Inc, the USDA made it clear to the U.S. meat industry that it had no intention of relaxing the requirement that all slaughter and processing plants pass three sets of salmonella tests. The tests are used to confirm that plants are producing safe food for consumers. “We're going to vigorously enforce the pathogen reduction regulation,” said Tom Billy, administrator of the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service. A spokesman for Supreme Beef was not immediately available for comment. The Dallas company previously said its meat is safe, and that the USDA tests are unfair and do not accurately measure food safety. The new deadline for Supreme Beef's slaughter plant may set the stage for another court action over the USDA's broad 1996 changes requiring meat and poultry plants to create food safety checkpoints along the production line. In the first major challenge of the regulations, Supreme Beef won a federal court ruling last week that blocked the USDA from punishing its Dallas ground beef processing plant for having high salmonella contamination in its products. The judge stopped the USDA from withdrawing federal meat inspectors from the plant, which would have effectively shut the facility. Under a century-old law, all meat sold across state lines must be inspected by the USDA and stamped with a federal seal. While the USDA mulls an appeal of that injunction, the department said it would not hesitate to take a similar action against Supreme Beef's slaughter plant in Ladonia, Texas. That plant failed a completely separate set of salmonella tests. “We have communicated with Supreme Beef as to their slaughter plant and provided them with a deadline of Jan. 3 to provide us an acceptable plan that will enable us to allow them to continue slaughtering animals,” Billy told reporters. The USDA has also halted all purchases of hamburger from Supreme Beef for the federal school lunch program. Salmonella can cause diarrhea in healthy adults, but can be deadly for young children, the elderly and others with weak immune systems. Last year, some 600 Americans died and 1.4 million others fell ill from it. The court ruling has been criticized by consumer and health groups, who worry that it will weaken food safety rules. “We must fight this court ruling,” said Dr. Mohammed Akhtar, head of the American Public Health Association. “This plant did not fail standards in some minimal way. It failed in a big way. When you fail in a big way, you affect public health,” Akhtar added. The USDA said the tests showed Supreme Beef had salmonella rates ranging as high as 47% in the ground beef tested. A company flunks the test if it has more than 7.5% contamination. Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman met Friday with Akhtar and representatives of the American Association of Retired People, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, and the Consumer Federation of America. He assured them the USDA was working with Justice Department attorneys to plan the next step in the case, which has been set for trial in May. “My own hope is that it is appealed, and appealed quickly,” Glickman said, referring to last week's preliminary injunction. “Our salmonella standard is reasonable, scientifically valid, legally sound, and we should enforce it.” The Texas court ruling is “the first step in unravelling” the USDA's attempt to shift to science-based food safety rules and away from the old “poke and sniff” approach, he added. Under the program, 100% of large U.S. meat and poultry plants have passed the salmonella tests, Billy said. Small plants, including Supreme Beef and others with fewer than 500 employees, have a passing rate of 91%. The 91% rate also reflects the fact that some plants have not yet completed all three sets of tests, he said. The USDA also agreed to consider a request by consumer groups to publish the names of any more meat and poultry plants that flunk all three sets of salmonella tests required.
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