Transcript SLE-2YEARS (1/98-1/00)

Foodborne Outbreak and
Recalls
Mansour Samadpour
IEH Laboratories and consulting Group
Seattle, Washington
Why do we have so many
foodborne outbreaks
• Many food producers with respect to food safety unknowingly
play a game of Russian Roulette
• Food safety becomes a focus only when it becomes an issue
(outbreak, recall, NOS, NOIE, customer specification)
• Even after a major outbreak, in most cases, for the rest of the
members of a given industry the guys with the problem had
“done something wrong”
• They wish for them to go away/bankrupt. Only with repeated
outbreaks the industry and or regulators will come up wit ha
workable solution
• Sometimes the entire industry takes actions (beef, almond)
How outbreaks are detected
In most instances outbreaks detect epidemiologist
With better epidemiology we will see a lot more outbreaks
The Current State of
Epidemiology
• Most of the action (if not all) happens at the county
and state level
• CDC is increasingly loosing interest/leadership
• Several states have a don’t ask don’t tell foodborne
surveillance programs
• The entire surveillance relies on the cooperation of
clinical labs, with the assumption that lab tests will be
ordered, and pathogens will be isolated for foodborne
illnesses
• In the absence of effective surveillance programs
most outbreaks will not be detected
• Very few states have real time foodborne illness
investigation programs
• We need to reduce the time that it takes to detect
outbreaks
The Ultimate source of food
contamination
Why do they happen?
• Lack of control and verification over the entire span of
food production
• Lack of Regulatory oversight (in case of FDA
regulated industries)
• Non-validated interventions
• Non-validated SSOPs
• Insufficient CPs and CCPs
• Incompetent regulation and regulatory instruments
• Economics of food safety
Economics of Food Safety
• Resembles the current administration's
Economic Policy
• No one wants to pay for the cost
• There is no premium attached to
comprehensive food safety programs in the
buyer community (retailers, and most food
service operations),
• Producers have to pay the full cost, in a
competitive market which is slow to adjust or
reward for the food safety costs
How likely is a company to
have an outbreak/recall?
• No food company is immune to recalls or outbreaks
• The likelihood of getting involved in a RC/OB is a
function of:
 Inherent risks associated with their products:
 Beef trim vs. ground beef for food services vs. ground beef
for retail, vs. frozen ground beef/patties for retail
 Chemical, physical, biological hazards
 Nature of the processing: Do we have a kill step
 Control of the process
 Verification: in-house vs. independent
 QAQC reporting to production
A food producer is as good as
it’s worst production facility
or it’s worst supplier or..
• The weakest link in the chain
• What control do we have over imported
foods?
We need identical programs not equivalent
programs
Importing “cheap foods” breeds economic
fraud and forces suppliers to take short
cuts
How to reduce the risk of
outbreaks and recalls
Two types of food safety systems:
Validation/Verification Based
Faith Based
E. Coli O157 testing
program for ground beef
production
• 100% trim lot testing for E. coli O157.
• Each lot about 5 tons.
• One composite sample (60 pieces) of
375 grams per lot
• Positive lots are sent to industrial
cookers or to rendering
• Program went into effect on Dec. 15,
2002.
Consequences of 100%
testing for E. coli O157
• About 1500 less reported cases of E.
coli O157 infections in the population in
2003 vs. 2002.
• This represents ca. 36% reduction in
human cases solely attributed to the
impact of testing and the actions taken
by the food industry in response to
having positive test results.
Beef Industry
Success
E. coli
FSIS
O157:H7 Testing Program
Percent Positive Samples
1.0
0.8
New
method
0.6
0.4
25g ->
325g
0.2
Year
http://www.fsis.usda.gov/Science/Ecoli_O157_Summary
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
1999
1998
1997
1996
1995
1994
0.0
EC O157 trim from four establishments 2006-2008
240
220
200
2006
2007
2008
180
160
No. of EC O157
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr
May
Jun
Jul
Aug
n=60 single combo testing
Sep
Oct
Nov
Dec
Case Study: Ground Beef
• Ground Beef is the main source of exposure to O157
in beef
• Ground beef producers are the recipients of
upstream process failure
• They have little control over their process or the fate
of their company
• They receive beef trim that has already been tested
for E. coli O157, and has tested negative
• The FSIS test results show that although the use of
primary tested trim has resulted in decreasing the
incident of positive O157 ground beef by 50%-60%
Case Study: Ground Beef
• We need a second firewall between the
grinders and the trim suppliers
• The FSIS data shows that the exposure fro
ground beef can be further reduced if
grinders conduct their own secondary testing
of the trim, followed by verification testing of
their final products
• This will result in drastic reduction of O157
incidents in ground beef to a point that can
remove it from the public health radar
Conclusions
• We need a single food safety agency
• FSIS vs. FDA
• An expanded version of FSIS with it’s own
Foodborne Diseases Epidemiology Division, with
expanded authority (including some currently held by
APHIS) may be the answer
• We have to address the cost associated with food
safety (consumers, retailers, food service)
• We can do better in epidemiological investigations:
what is done in most cases is too little too late