Jolley: Five Minutes With Dr. Jim Marsden & The Sunday New York Times
10/16/2009 10:21AM
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I’ve always looked at stories about agricultural and meat processing written by folks who live east of the Hudson River with a great deal of suspicion. They have a disadvantage unlike writers who labor for the Kansas City Star, the Des Moines Register or the High Plains Journal. Those folks usually have had the advantage of a little mud or some other less savory cow country substance on their boots.
People who live in New York City generally have a different but limited perspective on agriculture and food production, especially when it comes to meat. Partaking of a Kobe beef hamburger topped with a well-aged, raw milk Vermont cheddar at ‘21’ and growing a tomato plant in a milk carton on a ledge outside a loft on the lower east side doesn’t give you a farmer’s or food processor’s perspective. Caring for a cat or walking your cock-a-poo in the 42nd Street theater district doesn’t make you an expert on animal handling. Calling a dozen or so of the predictably usual ‘sources’ if you’re writing a food processing story already anchored by pre-conceived notions doesn’t make the story any more valid. But I guess it’s all they have if the total of their experience with farming or food processing is a Saturday afternoon visit to Dean & Deluca.
So it came as no surprise when the New York Times ground beef story hit the fan on October 4 that I heard the same refrain from my usual sources. “We spent hours on the phone with (fill in the blank) and he didn’t use one quote from us.” “I lined the writer up with X number of experts and we saw just one short quote.” Or, “We tried to contact the writer with our input but he wouldn’t take our calls.”
But the usual suspects on the anti-meat, anti-big ag side of the equation get quoted in spades and held out as believable third party resources. Strange isn’t it that if you attack something, you’re an instant expert to be believed regardless of your training? Defend it from years of experience and you’re an apologist and a tainted resource?
Proving the point, almost immediately after the Times story hit the street, I started getting emails from people who wanted to point out the factual errors in the reporting done by writers Michael Moss and Gabe Johnson. A gentleman in Argentina even sent a complete copy of the article with detailed notes on what he saw as grievous errors.
Lately, it seems like these stories are lining up and taking dead aim at American agriculture like low pressure zones swirling off the coast of Africa in the fall. Most will peter out before they make landfall; a few will hit the North American coastline as devastating category 3 or 4 hurricanes. Such was the case with the Times article. It was a category 4.
To sift though the article and separate fact from fiction, I decided to call on a real expert, someone who has worked on finding solutions to the E. coli problem for years. Dr. Jim Marsden, who was quoted briefly in the Times story, is one of the foremost experts on the subject and the steps necessary to eradicate it. He’s Kansas State University’s Regent’s Distinguished Professor of Meat Science and serves as the Associate Director of the school’s National Agriculture Biosecurity Center. Dr. Marsden is the Senior Science Advisor for the North American Meat Processors Association and the author of numerous publications and book chapters on food safety and quality. He serves on a number of advisory boards for companies that provide food safety technologies to the meat industry.
Impressive credentials, right? And I already know I’ll get a few messages from folks who wish to point out his ‘obvious’ bias. Experience. Education. A trained and respected scientist who’s spent years in the trenches. Such a horrible taint. He actually knows what he’s talking about.
I decided to talk with him, anyway.
Q. Jim, I thought some of the statements made by Michael Moss and Gabe Johnson, the writers of the New York Times article, were poorly substantiated or took some liberties with the science. Quite a few readers agreed. So let's examine a few of them and see if they can stand up to logic and good scientific review.
One of the early quotes in the article was "Ground beef is usually not simply a chunk of meat run through a grinder. Instead, records and interviews show, a single portion of hamburger meat is often an amalgam of various grades of meat from different parts of cows and even from different slaughterhouses. These cuts of meat are particularly vulnerable to E. coli contamination, food experts and officials say."
In your opinion, does how a piece of meat grade out or the particular cut itself have any correlation to its 'vulnerability' to E. coli contamination?
A. Contamination with E. coli O157:H7 isn’t related to grade or identified with particular cuts. However, when trimmings are collected from multiple carcasses, it stands to reason that there is an increased probability that one of those carcasses may be contaminated with the pathogen. This means that there is an increased risk that a combo of trimmings that contains meat from multiple carcasses may contain E. coli O157:H7
It is also easier to decontaminate whole subprimals because the microbiological contamination is limited to the outside surface. Co-mingled trimmings are more difficult to decontaminate.
Q. Another interesting quote: "But when it came to E. coli O157:H7, Cargill did not screen the ingredients and only tested once the grinding was done. The potential pitfall of this practice surfaced just weeks before Ms. Smith’s patty was made. A company spot check in May, 2007 found E. coli in finished hamburger, which Cargill disclosed to investigators in the wake of the October outbreak. But Cargill told them it could not determine which supplier had shipped the tainted meat since the ingredients had already been mixed together.
“Our finished ground products typically contain raw materials from numerous suppliers,” Dr. Angela Siemens, the technical services vice president for Cargill’s meat division, wrote to the U.S.D.A. “Consequently, it is not possible to implicate a specific supplier without first observing a pattern of potential contamination.”
Dr. Siemens comment gets to the heart of one of the most critical problems in the current system; the use of untested raw materials. Later in the story, Craig Wilson, Costco's food safety director, said testing incoming raw materials was a problem that met with 'resistance from some big slaughterhouses.'
“Tyson will not supply us,” said Wilson. “They don’t want us to test.” It was a situation that Tyson was quick to remedy just a few days after the story appeared when they agreed to supply Costco. But, having talked with many smaller grinders, I know it's a widespread problem. Would you talk about the reasoning behind it?
Is the stance based on science or something else?
A. There have been problems with the testing of raw materials for E. coli O157:H7 since USDA announced their ground beef adulteration policy in 1993. At one point, the large packers sent letters to beef processors stating that they would not supply companies that test raw materials for ground beef. That problem has been at least partially resolved and there is widespread (but not universal) testing of trimmings destined for ground beef manufacturing. The n60 testing system has been widely implemented across the industry. Smaller plants have less influence with their suppliers and there still may be cases when it is difficult to obtain tested raw materials.
Raw material testing is an important component of a food safety system for controlling E. coli O157:H7. It should not be discouraged.
However, there are still problems with even the most aggressive testing system because of the low incidence of E. coli O157:H7 in raw beef and the fact that it is not uniformly distributed. When it is present, there is a high probability that sampling and testing systems will not find it.
The better way to look at raw material testing is as a way to verify that the interventions that make up the overall food safety system have eliminated the pathogen. This is done by using validated interventions that in combination prevent or eliminate E. coli O157:H7 and then testing regularly to verify their effectiveness.
Q. Another quote from the NY Times articles claimed that "...the meat processing industry has resisted taking the (testing) onus on itself. An Agriculture Department survey of more than 2,000 plants taken after the Cargill outbreak showed that half of the grinders did not test their finished ground beef for E. coli; only 6 percent said they tested incoming ingredients at least four times a year.
In October 2007, the agency issued a notice recommending that processors conduct at least a few tests a year to verify the testing done by slaughterhouses. But after resistance from the industry, the department allowed suppliers to run the verification checks on their own operations.
In August 2008, the U.S.D.A. issued a draft guideline again urging, but not ordering, processors to test ingredients before grinding. “Optimally, every production lot should be sampled and tested before leaving the supplier and again before use at the receiver,” said the draft guideline."
Those three paragraphs lead me to ask about 'test and hold,' a policy the AMI urged the USDA to require over a year ago. It met with stiff resistance at first but it now seems to be catching on. In fact, Cargill, the company that bore the brunt of the Times story seems to be in the forefront of test and hold. Dr. Siemens told MEAT&POULTRY magazine's Steve Bjerklie that "Test-and-hold must be part of an overall strategy. It cannot be the only strategy that a company employs as its use cannot guarantee total food safety. Cargill uses multiple interventions and programs in addition to test-and-hold to mitigate the risk."
First, why the resistance to test and hold? And will increased testing help solve the problem?
A. The resistance to test and hold is based on the problem of holding highly perishable ground beef for the time required to generate a negative test result. As rapid microbiological testing methods have improved, this argument has eroded and many more beef processors have adopted a test and hold program.
Given that the presence of any level of E. coli O157:H7 constitutes adulteration in raw ground beef, I strongly recommend that every finished production lot be tested. In addition, product should be held from commerce until a negative test result is obtained.
Q. Next, Dr. Siemens talked about multiple interventions as risk mitigation factors. Would you walk me through some of the interventions that have proved most effective?
A. Multiple interventions are in place in most large slaughter plants to reduce microbiological contamination. These include:
1. Washing of cattle prior to slaughter
2. Automated Hide Pulling
3. Steam Vacuuming to remove physical defects after hide pulling
4. Pre-evisceration organic acid washes
5. Controlled evisceration process
6. Post-evisceration organic acid washes
7. Post-evisceration Steam vacuuming
8. Thermal Pasteurization of carcasses (steam or hot water)
9. Post-chill antimicrobial treatments – i.e. Sanova
These are some of the most common and effective interventions. There are others, including EMSTM (Editor’s note: An Ingersoll Rand Industrial Refrigeration product) for controlling contaminants that are carried on particles and/or water vapor, carcass spacing and others.
Q. The industry had made huge strides in combating E. coli with recalls and illnesses caused by the bacteria dropping every year until 2008 when recalls spiked. What happened?
A. There are a number of theories, including:
1. Complacency in the beef industry
2. The loss of skilled workers due to INS crackdowns on slaughter plants
3. Increasing resistance to interventions due to mutations in the microorganism.
4. Climate changes
5. Improved disease surveillance
6. Improved microbiological testing methods
7. Normal statistical variation
8. All or none of the above.
Q. You were quoted in the article as saying the Department of Agriculture needed to issue better guidance on “avoiding cross-contamination, like urging people to use bleach to sterilize cutting boards. “Even if you are a scientist, much less a housewife with a child, it’s very difficult.” What are the practical and sensible steps consumers take to protect themselves from any food borne illness?
A. I believe that cross contamination in the kitchen is a big part of the problem with E. coli O157:H7. Here are a few things that may help reduce the risk.
1. Designate a cutting board for raw meat products. After it is used wash it and put it into the dishwasher. Use a different cutting board for other foods.
2. The same is true for cookware, serving dishes and utensils. Separate raw from cooked or ready to eat.
3. Wash everything possible in the dishwasher. As utensils are used, place them directly into the dishwasher.
4. Wash and sanitize hands often.
5. Use paper towels instead of cloth dish towels.
6. If a kitchen sponge is used, sterilize it regularly by heating in the microwave for about a minute.
7. Maintain absolute separation between raw meat and cooked meat and other ready-to-eat foods.
8. Regarding the use of bleach, I meant to say that it is effective, but not practical. Use the dishwasher instead (which means that you buy dishwasher safe plastic cutting boards for raw meat use.
The best way to prevent the problem of cross contamination is to eliminate the pathogen from raw beef products so that it doesn’t come into the kitchen in the first place. We can’t expect consumers to maintain aseptic conditions in their kitchens.
Q. The bottom line of the article, whether you choose to agree with some of the points or not, was the current system is a failure and needs to be fixed as soon as possible. Overall, do we have a problem? And what needs to be done?
A. In order to solve the problem of E. coli O157:H7, we have to develop a way to truly pasteurize beef carcasses. The best place to stop contamination is at the carcass. At that point in the process, all of the microbiological contamination is limited to the outside surface. The meat inside is sterile until contamination occurs from the outside-in. If the industry can effectively pasteurize carcasses, further processing can occur under aseptic conditions and the problem is solved before it ever reached the consumer.