Under a rule to be announced today, any bacteria that sicken more than 100,000 Americans a year will no longer be allowed in raw ground beef.
The Department of Agriculture plans this morning to begin the process of adding six deadly strains of E. coli to the list of things not allowed in raw ground beef for human consumption, according to the American Meat Institute and the National Cattlemen's Beef Association.
Before now, only one E. coli strain, O157:H7, was considered a potential hazard, and any ground beef that tested positive for it had to be removed from the market.
The strain was first deemed hazardous and banned in ground beef after undercooked hamburgers killed four children and sickened more than 700 in the Pacific Northwest in 1994.
At the time, it was thought that only one particular E. coli type carried the dangerous Shiga toxin that had proved so deadly. In the past decade, it has become clear that multiple forms of E. coli carry the toxin, with the six most deadly dubbed "The Big Six." Under the new rule, those six will no longer be allowed in raw ground beef meant for human consumption.
USDA's Food Safety Inspection Service is expected to announce it will begin testing for these non-O157:H7 forms of E. coli beginning March 5, 2012.
The rule will first be published in the Federal Register, opening a 60-day comment period.
The move is one that food-safety advocates have fought years for, and which beef producers fought equally hard against.
"We're absolutely thrilled," says Nancy Donley of the food-safety advocacy group STOP Foodborne Illness in Chicago. "It's a real boon."
But regulation should be based on sound science and the USDA must include the concerns of cattlemen, says Todd Allen, of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association.
Instead of banning these E. coli strains, the USDA should have spent the money focusing on "preventive strategies," says the American Meat Institute's James Hodges. There is no good data to show that they are actually making people sick, he said.
Seattle food-safety lawyer Bill Marler sued the USDA in 2009 to force it to designate the Big Six as adulterants, which is anything dangerous or poisonous. He said he hopes the meat industry will respond positively, unlike with the first E. coli ruling in 1994, which the industry sued to overturn and lost. "I think the agency took a slower approach to make sure they were on solid legal ground," he says.
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