Guest Blog: Does The “No Illnesses” Language Belong in Recall Notices?

The following Guest Blog first appeared on Food Safety News, and is reproduced here with the kind permission of its author, Dan Flynn.

Does The “No Illnesses” Language Belong in Recall Notices?

by Dan Flynn

Food companies that are voluntarily recalling a product usually use the language suggested by regulatory agencies that is then distributed electronically via the federal government websites. Recalls not connected to outbreaks almost always contain a line saying there are no reported illnesses associated with the recalled product.

William F. Keene, Oregon’s senior state epidemiologist, thinks it’s time for reporters and editors to “not let themselves be duped into amplifying press release boilerplate.”

Both the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) have templates for companies to use when writing a recall announcement. They are:

FDA: ”No illnesses have been reported to date.”

FSIS: “There have been no reports of illnesses associated with consumption of these products.”

“Until they have the isolate(s) serotyped, have PFGE’d (conducted a pulsed-field gel electrophoresis analysis), and compared to PulseNet or analogous data,” says Keene, “they are just blowing smoke.” He says that without subtyping data, the media should not fall for it. The only accurate report is that there is no way of knowing (at this time) if there are any associated illnesses.

Dr. David Acheson, who previously held top posts at both FSIS and FDA before becoming a partner at Leavitt Partners, says Keene “is correct, but nobody other than a microbiologist would know that the heck that means and the basic statement from the regulators is still correct.”

Acheson says the point of recall announcements is to answer the public’s “what should I do” questions, and he prefers keeping it “simple and specific.” Acheson says he might add the word “yet” to statements about no illnesses being reported.

Phyllis Entis, the food safety microbiologist and author, who publishes the highly respected eFoodAlert, covering food recalls worldwide, goes a step further than Keene.

“I think that an absence of a ‘no illnesses’ statement would be preferable to the current boilerplate,” she says. “I agree that we should be asking the question, and I have queried CDC in some cases. At times, I even get an answer!”

And Entis notes that boilerplate is used worldwide. The XL Foods recall, the largest beef recall in Canada’s history, originally came out with this line from the template: “There have been on reported illnesses associated with the consumption of these products.”

A short time later the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) was confirming 18 cases of E coli O157:H7 from XL’s contaminated beef.

Keene, who has solved many a multistate outbreak, admits he is motivated by a desire to “light a fire” under food companies to get them to turn over isolates to public health labs so they can be subtyped. Only then can the food isolates be matched to any human cases that might exist.

“As you can imagine, Keene says, “this is not a prospect that excites many food processors, as it literally asking for trouble. I think making it clear that we don’t know if there might be illnesses will prompt people to ask more of the right questions.”

Keene notes that often-ill people who are matched to contaminated food are never asked (or told) if they ate it. He says the system is complicated, with the left hand often not knowing what the right hand is doing.

Carol L. Tucker-Foreman, distinguished food policy fellow at the Consumer Federation of America and USDA’s former Assistant Secretary for Food and Consumer Services, says where there is a recall, there is risk.

“The current FSIS language suggests that there are no reported illnesses as yet and therefore no risk to public health,” she says. “But if that were the case there would be no recall. The recall means the company and FSIS know some meat from the recalled lot is available to the public. That means there is some continuing risk and the agency should say so.”

With her experience in and out of the federal government, Tucker-Foreman says both FDA and FSIS “are eager not to alarm the public unnecessarily or create to much of a problem for the company where there’s no reported illnesses.”

She says food companies “particularly hate the fact that a press release and recall occur based only on plant testing, However, there is no recall unless FSIS believes some contaminated product left the plant and has not yet been recover.”

For his part, Keene is the first to acknowledge that most recalls are not associated with illnesses. However, he says, that is only partially true because nobody is asking. If isolates were turned over to public health labs and searches for matches conducted, then we’d know more about whether or not there were illnesses.

Keene says even then if the test produced a common pattern and there was no spiking of the pattern, its unlikely CDC would bother getting back to “state epi people” and the matches might not be contemporaneous enough to make it worthwhile to health officials to get back in touch with the ill people.

Keene was last in the national news in September 2011 when Del Monte Fresh Produce dropped a lawsuit against the epidemiologist that some said sought to put the science of epidemiology on trial. Del Monte was upset because some of its Central American grown cantaloupe were subjected to an import alert.

About the author: Dan Flynn is a Denver-based writer and editor with more than ten years of food safety experience. As a public affairs professional, he worked with government and regulatory agencies at the local, state, and federal levels. At present, he is Editor of Food Safety News.

Adulteration – In The Eyes Of The Beholden?

“Salmonella on a raw uncooked product is not, in and of itself, a public health risk … Salmonella on a raw uncooked hamburger does not make it adulterated. It does not mean that the plant is not operating in an unsanitary way.”

– Patrick Boyle, CEO of the American Meat Institute, in a 2002 Frontline interview

E. coli O157:H7 is a human pathogen that can be found in the intestines of cattle and other ruminants. In 2009-2010, this single serotype of shigatoxin-producing E. coli (STEC) was responsible for thirteen multistate disease outbreaks. USDA recognizes E. coli O157:H7 and six other STEC serotypes as adulterants in raw beef.

Salmonella is a human pathogen that can be found in the intestines of cattle and many other animals. In 2009-2010, Salmonella was behind twenty-one multistate disease outbreaks. Yet, as far as USDA is concerned, Salmonella is NOT an adulterant in raw beef.

According to the Federal Meat Inspection Act, meat is considered “adulterated” if “…it bears or contains any poisonous or deleterious substance which may render it injurious to health…“ A USDA training program explains that, “… E. coli O157:H7 is considered to be an added substance because it is introduced to the product during processing. For example, it is spread from the hide or digestive tract of the animals during slaughter or processing. It is injurious to health because one of the normal ways of cooking this product includes “rare” which is not sufficient to destroy the pathogen.”

In case anyone at USDA hasn’t noticed, Salmonella also is ” … spread from the hide or digestive tract of the animals during slaughter or processing.“ And Salmonella, likewise, is not destroyed by “rare” cooking of meat.

Since October 2011, the CDC has reported three multistate outbreaks of Salmonella infections that were linked to consumption of contaminated ground beef.

Between October 8th and December 17th, 2011, twenty persons in seven states were infected with Salmonella Typhimurium. Victims included a child less than one year of age, and a 79-year-old individual. Eight people were hospitalized. The illnesses were traced to ground beef purchased from Hannaford supermarkets.
Between June 6th and July 27th, 2012, forty-six persons in nine states were infected with Salmonella Enteritidis. The youngest outbreak victim was three years old; the eldest was 101. Twelve people were hospitalized. The outbreak was traced to ground beef produced on a single date at a Cargill Meat Solutions production facility.
On January 25, 2013, CDC announced a new outbreak. Sixteen people in five states have been infected with the Salmonella Typhimurium outbreak strain so far. Seven of the outbreak victims reported eating raw ground beef kibbeh at a restaurant in Michigan. Seven of the 16 outbreak victims were hospitalized. CDC considers that ground beef produced by two companies – Jouni Meats, Inc., and Gab Halal Foods – is the likely source of the outbreak.

In 2001, a Texas-based meat processor (Supreme Beef) successfully fought USDA’s efforts to set limits on Salmonella in raw meat, after the Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling in the company’s favor. USDA chose NOT to take the battle to the US Supreme Court. The following year, an effort by the Senator Tom Harkin, the Chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, to introduce legislation to clarify USDA’s authority was opposed – successfully – by the American Meat Institute.

In short, more than ten years ago, USDA tucked its collective head back into its tortoise shell, even though Salmonella is, BY DEFINITION OF THE FEDERAL MEAT INSPECTION ACT, an adulterant.

Are USDA and Congress waiting for raw beef to be the source of a FATAL Salmonella outbreak before scraping together the courage to oppose the American Meat Institute lobby? Are those responsible for food safety so beholden to – or frightened of – the meat lobby that nothing else will embolden them to take action?

Someone explain this to me. Please!

A Word of Explanation

Dear eFoodAlert Followers:

As many of you have remarked, eFoodAlert has “gone dark” for the last week. This was due to a family emergency.

The daily Recalls and Alerts feature will resume later today, beginning with “catch-up” posts that will cover the past week’s news. For convenience, due to the volume of items, I shall divide the posts by geography, beginning with the USA, followed by Canada, Europe, Asia and Africa. There were no recalls or alerts from Australia, New Zealand or Latin America in the past week.

Thanks for your patience and your understanding.

Phyllis Entis (aka Foodbuglady)