November 28, 2007

USDA lowers Canada beef E. coli tests 

The US Department of Agriculture on Wednesday will lower testing it does for E. coli bacteria in meat imported from Canada, resuming "normal levels" of examination after audits showed a safety problem there to be "an isolated situation," a USDA official said on Tuesday (November 27, 2007).

Richard Raymond, USDA undersecretary for food safety, told Dow Jones Newswires, "We're reducing the increased testing. We're going back to the normal level of testing."

US inspectors typically test about 4 percent-5 percent of imports, but that shot up to about 10 percent on November 9 after "unsafe practices" were discovered at Canada-based Ranchers Beef, Ltd. It was Ranchers Beef that exported contaminated beef to the now-defunct New Jersey-based Topps Meat Co., which recalled 21.7 million pounds of frozen hamburger patties after illnesses in eight states were linked to the products.

Seven other Canadian beef-producing plants suspected of potentially producing beef contaminated with the deadly E. coli O157:H7 bacteria were also inspected, but they got a clean bill of health, Raymond said.

USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service, in a letter to the Canadian government dated November 27, said that "the unsafe practices in Ranchers Beef were not employed by other establishments."

Furthermore, FSIS said in the letter that the increased E. coli testing it has been doing this month "has not revealed any problems with Canadian products exported to the United States."

The recent decision by FSIS to employ additional forms of E. coli testing on beef imports, whether from Canada or other countries, has not changed, Raymond said. The new tests include examination of raw ground beef, raw beef manufacturing trim and boxed beef.