Source: Rita Jane Gabbett, MEATINGPLACE, 9/28/11

USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service held a public meeting last week that reviewed the work of the agency and the National Advisory Committee on Meat and Poultry Inspection (NACMPI) on pre-harvest hazard analysis and HACCP controls.

On its website, FSIS has posted various presentations from the Sept. 22-24 meeting on topics including Salmonella Enteritidis, E. coli O157:H7, chemical residues and antimicrobial resistant pathogens.

Salmonella
In materials presented on pre-harvest salmonella control, FSIS said salmonella, especially multi-drug resistant strains, are being increasingly identified as the cause of human illness from ground poultry and beef products.

It noted since 2009, more than 37 million pounds of raw ground beef and ground turkey products over five separate recalls were implicated in salmonellosis outbreaks and the impetus for each recall was human illnesses.

The agency said it is extremely difficult to identify source establishments and affected products with multi-state efforts that are labor and resource-intensive.

“[T]he time needed to retrospectively identify the source of the illnesses allowed for the number of illnesses and deaths to continue to rise during the investigation,” the agency acknowledged.

On July 1 FSIS implemented new, stricter Salmonella performance standards for young chickens and turkey.

“While the agency expects this to significantly reduce overall exposure to salmonella as industry comes into compliance with the new standard, it does not necessarily compel industry to focus on subtyping information, such as serotype, PFGE pattern, or drug resistance information,” the agency wrote. “This is where the agency views the establishment’s Hazard Analysis and validation of its controls to be vital.”

E. coli
At the committee’s recommendation, FSIS is planning a series of public meetings starting this fall with a meeting on controlling both E. coli O157:H7 and salmonella in live cattle.

Chemical residues
In response to committee recommendations related to animal traceability and repeat residue violators, FSIS recently developed new compliance guidelines for residue prevention and agency residue testing, which it will announce in the Federal Register. FSIS will accept comments on the guidelines and on the utility and ease of use of a repeat violators list.

Antimicrobial resistant pathogens
FSIS is collaborating with public health partners to combat drug resistant strains in the food supply and is discussing relevant research topics with USDA’s Agricultural Research Service.

FSIS will also start providing drug-resistance data on pathogen positive samples, including information on the FDA classification of the most severe drug resistance as it may impact public health and a listing of all analyzed drugs to which the isolate is resistant.

“The agency believes that by providing the full spectrum of information, including drug-resistance information, to the establishments that it will enable better food safety decisions at the local or corporate level,” one document from the meeting stated.

View all posted documents from the meeting here.