On Tuesday, members of the Safe Food Coalition delivered a letter to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, urging an immediate change in the Food Safety and Inspection Service’s (FSIS) E. coli O157:H7 traceback policy. The request follows a similar letter delivered in April 2009, which recommended that the FSIS trace meat contamination back to the source, and remove all affected product from commerce. While the agency held an informational meeting regarding their process, there has been no policy response to this dangerous loophole in agency procedure.

The letter follows confirmation from FSIS officials that the agency only conducts a complete traceback when a foodborne illness outbreak indicates that E. coli 0157:H7 adulterated product actually entered commerce. It does not take these same steps when its routine microbiological testing program for E. coli O157:H7 detects the pathogen in ground product at a federally inspected facility or at retail.  Since FSIS’s routine testing for E. coli typically finds the pathogen 40 times a year, this lack of action on behalf of the government agency misses critical opportunities to prevent illness and unnecessarily threatens public health.

Consumer groups have been urging the USDA to change its meat-tracing activities when it finds contamination in a finished product like ground beef. Because contamination starts before beef is ground into hamburger – often at a different company’s facility – the agency should investigate back in the supply chain to find the original source of the problem. Without doing this, USDA fails to prevent even more contaminated product from reaching consumers.

The agency regularly does not identify the actual source of contamination unless consumers get sick or die.  It is time for USDA to take the threat of contaminated ground beef seriously and update its policies.