USDA Issues New Safety Rules for Beef

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Zero Tolerance for Toxic E. coli; Beef Held Until Tests Done

By Daniel J. DeNoon

The USDA today announced two new rules to make U.S. beef safer.

The announcement accompanied the first report of the two-year-old Food Safety Working Group, led by the White House and staffed by agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Taking effect in 2012, the new rules:

Declare "adulterated" and unfit for sale any beef that tests positive for any shigella toxin-producing E. coli bacteria. Current rules cover only a single strain of the potentially deadly bug, yet the other strains cause about 112,000 illnesses each year.
Begin a "test and hold" policy for beef. Beef lots selected for testing will be withheld from market until test results show them to be free of germs and drug residues. Under the current system, beef that tests positive for bacteria or contaminants has to be recalled. The FDA estimates that the test-and-hold policy would have prevented 44 recalls from 2007 through 2009.

Read more at http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=152979
 
 
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