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By Root 1277 0

to block the pathogen testing plan, based on this wonderfully convoluted argument: because the USDA had done nothing to control E. coli O157:H7 since the first outbreak in 1982, the present situation could hardly be considered an emergency. This transparently self-serving argument prompted the New York Times to note the industry’s “odd way” of promoting public health: “Trying to give their obstructionist lawsuit a respectable veneer, the plaintiffs voice concern that the spot-inspection program could mislead consumers into relaxing their own safe handling and cooking practices. . . . It is not consumers the lawsuit seeks to protect but the industry’s right to sell tainted beef.”42

Among the many ironic aspects of this dispute, the trade associations’ lawsuit turned out to be heard by the very same Texas district court judge, James Nowlin, who had ruled against the USDA’s proposals to require food-handling labels on procedural grounds just a year earlier. This time, the court surprised observers by ruling in favor of the USDA. Its rationale: because ordinary cooking temperatures could not kill E. coli O157:H7, the USDA had good reason to consider these bacteria as adulterants and test for them. This decision at last permitted the USDA to redesign its ancient food inspection system and start testing for this one harmful pathogen. Industry groups, however, saw the decision as mandating a program that “fails to protect consumers, wastes tax dollars and violates the law,” and they vowed to “maintain our course of legal action to stop it.”43

The trade associations’ lawsuit had one additional—and unanticipated—consequence. It mobilized the families of children killed by E. coli O157:H7 to form their own group—Safe Tables Our Priority (STOP)—to lobby for more rigorous meat regulations. The group picketed a meeting of the American Meat Institute and held a press conference to accuse meat producers of obstructing safety efforts: “My 6-year-old son Alex deserves to be alive today. . . . I hold the meat institute personally responsible” and “It’s time to stop blaming consumers for not cooking and give them a clean product.”44 Another consumer group, the Safe Food Coalition, proposed a “simple household solution” to the problem of the industry’s intransigent refusal to test for E. coli O157:H7 and its persistent avoidance of accountability: obtain proof of responsibility. “Tired of being a victim? . . . Weary of subjecting your family to a game of Russian Roulette every time you buy a package of hamburger meat? . . . [When] unpacking groceries, tuck the supermarket receipt and a small lump of hamburger in a ziplock bag. Toss this in the freezer. . . . In five seconds, at virtually no cost, you’ve got accountability. . . . This simple act gives control back to you and tells industry loud and clearly that we’re not going to take it any more.”45

In this instance, the political context permitted the USDA to hold its position and test one product (ground meat) for one pathogen (E. coli O157:H7). When the department attempted to extend testing requirements to other forms of meat and other pathogens, it again met with fierce resistance, as chapter 3 will reveal.

USDA POISED TO PROPOSE HACCP, 1994

By the early 1990s, the long history of collusion between meat producers, Congress, and the USDA seemed to have entered a new phase in which public interests held greater influence. Meat producers’ protection of the century-old inspection system no longer seemed credible. Although the industry contended that testing for microbes is unnecessary because so few samples are contaminated, this argument ignored a key point: even a small level of contamination can do great harm when the number of animals is large. For example, if just 0.2% of cattle are contaminated with E. coli O157:H7, 74,000 beef carcasses might be infected and, therefore, hundreds of thousands of pounds of hamburger.46 For this reason alone, the pathogen reduction component of HACCP (which necessarily includes performance standards and testing for microbes) seems thoroughly warranted.