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Salmonellosis: The Problem
In 2013, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that more than 500 people were sickened by seven strains of Salmonella Heidelberg linked to chicken. However, salmonellosis...
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Salmonella: The Bacterium
The genus Salmonella is diverse. Currently there are three recognized species: S. enterica, S. bongori and S. subterranean, with S. enterica the most important specie affecting human and food animal...
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Salmonellosis Prevention: ‘Just Cook It’
When Michael Taylor declared Escherichia coli O157:H7 an adulterant in ground beef, there were howls of, “Just cook it,” from the industry and from within FSIS. For example, two members of FSIS’...
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Salmonellosis Prevention: The Warning Labels Are Enough
Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) labels are not always informative. The warning label prescribed in 9 C.F.R. 317.2(l) and 381.125(b) has faded into the background of consumer’s awareness by...
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Controlling Salmonella in Raw Foods
One of the arguments against attempts to control Salmonella is that it is naturally occurring and impossible to eradicate. According to several scientific studies, that is not true. During 1978-1981,...
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Controlling Salmonella Would Cost Producers
Controlling Salmonella or other pathogens would cost producers, and the cost would be expected to be transferred to processors and consumers. For animal pathogens, the USDA’s APHIS bears some of the...
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Controlling Pathogens: Options and a Recommendation
My previous articles have outlined that certain strains of Salmonella are virulent and pathogenic to humans. As such, they are adulterants by definition of the Meat and Poultry Inspection Acts, even in...
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Slaughter practices more significant than poultry line speeds
Editor’s note: This opinion column offers a differing view from that presented by guest columnist Brian Ronholm in “Eschewing obfuscation on poultry slaughter line speed.” Poultry slaughter would...
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Vinegar can help home cooks battle bacteria on leafy greens
The most recent outbreak from Escherichia coli O157:H7 in romaine lettuce spurred me to pull up an old draft, trim it and post it in an attempt to promote public health. Enjoy. In the Spring of 2017...
View ArticleConsumer fault is a red herring; Salmonella should be an adulterant in poultry
Opinion Editor’s note: This is the first of a two-part opinion piece. In recent days the CDC and FSIS updated information on a continuing salmonellosis outbreak connected to raw and live turkeys. Since...
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Reality of our world: Money trumps altruism in the quest for safer poultry
Opinion Editor’s note: This is the second of a two-part opinion piece. To read part one, please click here. In the previous article, I wrote about the decades-old public health problem of poultry-borne...
View ArticleReality as we know it, as it’s been, and as it will remain if we don’t act
Contributed Editor’s note: One of our regular contributors, Carl Custer, has been closely watching the investigations into E. coli O157:H7 outbreaks associated with romaine lettuce in the past year....
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Salmonella and campylobacter performance standards a ‘good idea’ but . . .
Opinion Not all Salmonella are alike. Camplyobacter likely similar. Preharvest economic incentives haven’t eliminated STEC but imagine what the data would be like if there were none. Leafy greens...
View ArticleThe problem of salmonellosis and politics
Opinion During the past half century the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s annual reports show that salmonellosis has been the leading cause of foodborne death. Salmonellosis is caused by...
View ArticleThe Fallacy of APHA vs Butz on the Salmonella situation
Opinion Frequently, APHA vs Butz (1974) is cited as a reason that Salmonella cannot be declared an adulterant. That decision was based in part on an unsubstantiated political opinion contrary to...
View ArticleEducation, food safety and issues
– OPINION – We need more than education We need pathogen control Hey Congress, we can’t do it alone With apologies to Pink Floyd The theater building at Texas A&M College had an inscription...
View ArticleFSIS: More testing not preventing
– OPINION- This column addresses Docket No. FSIS-2019-0023 “Changes to the Salmonella Verification Testing Program: Proposed Performance Standards for Salmonella in Raw Comminuted Pork and Intact or...
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