PREVENTION OF FOOD-BORNE PATHOGENS IS KEY TO FOOD SAFETY

WASHINGTON, D.C., Oct. 8, 1997 -- Finding effective ways to prevent E. coli O157:H7 is a key to ensuring consumers receive safe and wholesome food and to preventing food-borne illness, said Alan Janzen, a cattle producer from Henderson, Neb., at a Senate Agriculture Committee hearing held here today to discuss food-safety issues and USDA Secretary Glickman's proposed legislation to give USDA expanded powers. Janzen is vice-chairman of the NCBA Beef Safety Committee and serves on the USDA National Advisory Committee on Meat and Poultry Inspection.

   "First and foremost, we believe there is an urgent need to focus all of our efforts on preventing problems," Janzen said. "Based on our analysis of the USDA legislative proposal, it is not clear how the additional authority would have prevented or enhanced the management of the recent E. coli incidents.

   "As beef cattle producers, we are on record as committed to contributing to finding solutions to the E. coli problem as well as any other potential food-borne pathogens," he said. "All of us who play a role from the farm to the table to ensure the food consumers receive is safe and wholesome must work together to design and implement a broad-based initiative to prevent food-borne illness."

   Janzen outlined the Oct. 6 creation of an industry-wide food safety task force that will focus on prevention of E. coli O157:H7. The result of a beef industry meeting hosted by Nebraska Governor Ben Nelson, the task force will include representatives from all segments of the industry as well as the scientific community and government agriculture agencies. NCBA Chief Executive Officer Chuck Schroeder has been named chairman of the task force.

   NCBA supports a number of steps to address the E. coli situation, Janzen said, including:

1. The HACCP based meat and poultry inspection system must be operating efficiently and effectively as soon as possible. It is of critical importance that the USDA inspection workforce is fully trained to be part of this new system.

2. Companies must have an opportunity to employ new technologies to help reduce the risk of E. coli and other potential pathogens. The development of methods to "pasteurize" ground meats just as we pasteurize milk and other products for human consumption needs to be seriously considered.

3. A strategic plan for prevention-oriented, food-safety research, technology development and transfer that engages the resources of the public and private sector must be developed and fully funded. This research strategy must establish a set of risk-based priorities that reflect the appropriate allocation of resources from the farm to the table.

4. There needs to be a focus on education of food handlers and consumers regarding the proper handling and cooking of raw agricultural products which are by definition not sterile.

   The task force created Monday will focus on where money best should be spent to help eradicate E. coli O157:H7, and is expected to include representatives from the packing and processing industry, marketing channels, the scientific community and state governments, as well as beef producers. The group, to be formed in the next few weeks, will consider research and consumer education needs and decide how to further advance priority initiatives.

   Janzen said the task force is expected to analyze various technologies, such as biotechnology and cold pasteurization, and consider their incorporation into beef production and processing as possible solutions to food safety issues. The group will also focus on expanding scientific research to prevent E. coli.

   In the last three years, packers and processors have invested more than $2.4 million in development and validation of new technologies, and the industry has invested over $65 million to put these new technologies in place. In the public sector, nearly half of the USDA Agricultural Research Service money spent on research is oriented to pre-harvest research, $2 million of which is directly targeted to E. coli O157:H7 on the farm.

   Initiated in 1898, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association is the marketing organization and trade association for America's one million cattle farmers and ranchers. With offices in Denver, Chicago and Washington, D.C., NCBA is a consumer-focused, producer-directed organization representing the largest segment of the nation's food and fiber industry.