April 2, 2008

AMI opposes USDA's proposed E. coli ruling
 

The American Meat Institute has expressed opposition to the USDA's possible expansion of a rule that would consider raw beef products such as primal cuts and boxed beef contaminated with E. coli 0157:H7 as adulterated.

According to the AMI, the move is not backed up by science or law.

The AMI doesn't know of any incidents in which intact primal cuts or boxed beef products in that form have caused illness to humans, said AMI President and CEO J Patrick Boyle in a letter to Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer.

If the USDA is concerned that certain such as trimmings from primal cuts and boxed beef may end up in ground beef or other non-intact products, then the solution would be better observance to best practices and improved agency enforcement, said Boyle.

The USDA looks to ruling raw beef products found with E. coli as adulterated even if these will still be processed further to kill the pathogen.