Ground Beef Recall Comes on Heel s of FDA Legislation

By Rachel Stockton (rachels@foodconsumer.org) 

A salmonella outbreak has been traced to Beef Packers, Inc., which is a unit of Minneapolis based Cargill. The Colorado Dept of Health has confirmed that four people have been hospitalized for the illness. In response, the USDA announced a recall on 826,000 lbs of ground beef produced from June 5-June 23. The strain in question is one that often appears in dairy cows that are used for ground beef processing once they get too old for the milk industry.

This newest recall has come on the heels of legislation passed in the House that gives the US FDA greater authority over the food industry. Earlier in the year, President Obama announced a review of the agency in response to a peanut butter recall.

The new law would allow the FDA to require more frequent inspections and greater access to various company records. While the FDA can announce guidelines for the food industry, they cannot make them mandatory. The current legislation will potentially give them the authority to do just that.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the bill allows funding for the agency to hire more food inspectors who can be trained to be more specialized.

The bill also allows for more the FDA to require companies to provide record keeping that will make it easier to trace tainted food, thus preventing outbreaks like this most recent incident.

The bill itself will require $2.2 billion dollars over five years to pay for the extensive record keeping and inspections. However, some of this money will be recouped by the agency, which will require most food companies to register with the FDA and pay $500 for each facility in operation.