Here’s the latest press release from my office:
MINNEAPOLIS, January 2010 — National food safety lawyer Fred Pritzker is calling on USDA to require E. coli O157:H7 warning labels on steaks and other beef products that have been mechanically tenderized.
In 1999, the federal agency charged with ensuring the safety of our nation’s meat supply banned E. coli O157:H7 from mechanically tenderized beef ( legally known as non-intact muscle meat) because it poses a public health risk. But special labeling of mechanically manipulated steak was never required.
Studies have shown that piercing the meat with blades, needles or injections of brine drives some surface E. coli into the center of the meat — making it unsafe to eat rare or medium. On intact steaks, surface E. coli readily die at temps hot enough to change the exterior color of the meat. Without warning labels, the vast majority of consumers can’t be sure what type of steak they are buying or whether non-intact cuts pose a threat.
Testing for E. coli at slaughter plants and processing plants catches some of the contamination when it occurs, but the testing protocols are far from foolproof and dangerous outbreaks of E. coli O157:H7 are still occurring.
For instance, National Steak and Poultry on December 24th recalled 248,000 pounds of boneless steak and other beef products. The company said the potentially contaminated meat was sold to three restaurant chains: Moe’s, Carino’s Italian Grill and KRM restaurants in Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, South Dakota and Washington.
Those are the same six states where state and federal health officials have identified a cluster of at least 21 E. coli illnesses associated with contaminated blade-tenderized steaks. Another 10 states are believed to be part of the outbreak.
“It is a sad fact of life that meat processors selling adulterated products that harm or kill unsuspecting citizens often do whatever it takes to avoid responsibility for the harms and losses caused by their products,” Pritzker said.
Pritzker said packing plants, processors, restaurants, grocery stores and other purveyors of meat have been doing a great injustice to the public by not identifying steaks and roasts that have been injected or otherwise mechanically tenderized. For the sake of E. coli prevention, the federal government must step in and now require sellers to label their products with appropriate warning.
“Regulation is essentially useless if it doesn’t protect consumers from known hazards,” Pritzker said. “In this case, people have the right to know the steak they are choosing could be laced with a deadly pathogen.”
E. coli O157:H7 grows benignly in the guts of cattle and is spread to meat via fecal contamination during slaughter. When ingested by humans, the bacteria emit a powerful toxin that causes extremely painful and often bloody diarrhea.
In more than five percent of cases, the pathogen can lead to life-threatening diseases and cause permanent injury to health. The highest incidence of illness from E. coli is in children under five years of age. They suffer from hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), the leading cause of child kidney failure in the United States.
Fred Pritzker is founder and president of Pritzker Olsen, P.A., one of the few law firms in the nation practicing extensively in the area of foodborne illness litigation. Over the years, the firm has collected tens of millions of dollars for victims of food poisoning. Outbreaks of foodborne disease are preventable and Pritzker Olsen actively supports various measures to reduce the threat of microbiological hazards in our food supply. For more information or to contact Fred, call 1-888-377-8900 (Toll Free), visit our web site or email Fred at fhp@pritzkerlaw.com.
