Source:  Lisa M. Keefe, MEATINGPLACE, 6/21/11
 

The Office of Management and Budget will hang on to USDA’s Food Safety Inspection Service’s proposals on whether non-O157:H7 E. coli strains should be declared adulterants; OMB recently asked for an extension to its review  of the agency’s recommendations, according to Dan Engeljohn, assistant administrator for the office of policy and program development at FSIS.

Speaking to the American Meat Science Association’s annual Reciprocal Meat Conference here, Engeljohn said it was impossible to know when the OMB will release the documents for publication in the Federal Register. The office has held on to some proposals for 18 months, he noted.

The industry widely anticipates that FSIS will propose that six non-O157:H7 strains of E. coli be declared adulterants, although Engeljohn did not discuss the content of the FSIS recommendations. USDA’s Under Secretary for Food Safety Elisabeth Hagen has said that the agency needs to broaden its reach on ground beef pathogen control beyond E. coli O157:H7, which is currently the only Shiga toxin-producing E. coli strain considered an adulterant in ground beef.

Engeljohn did say that if the proposals introduce new E. coli regulations, that the industry can expect “delayed implementation” of the rules. “We’d not actively be looking for it until the necessary infrastructure is in place” for companies, such as appropriate tests, he said.

Validation
Meanwhile, a revised document on requirements for meeting plant HACCP validation standards are expected to appear sometime in the next couple of weeks, Engeljohn said. He expects a new draft — revised in response to industry feedback to the original language — to be published in August, with a short comment period associated with it.

New validation requirements also would be expected to have a “delayed implementation period,” he said.

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