Last year, the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) was petitioned to declare six additional disease-causing and potentially life-threatening strains of E. coli, those referred to as non-O157 Shiga-toxin producing E. coli (STECs) or more succinctly, “the big six,” as adulterants. Specifically, those six strains include E. coli O26, O11, O103, O121
Back to Square One on Non-O157 STECs
A little over a month ago, on June 3, 2011, Deputy Director Donald Kraemer of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN) issued a statement regarding the E. coli O104:H4 outbreak in Europe.
The statement was published on the FDA website as well as on various news
Food Safety Advocates Call for Testing of Non-O157 Strains of E. coli
The AP is carrying the story today of efforts of food safety advocates, including us here at Marler Clark, to push the USDA to include several strains of E. coli known to be pathogenic to humans in its testing requirements for ground beef. E. coli O157:H7 is the most well known of a group of pathogenic
Help wanted: time for government to act on food safety
Circumstances have long been ripe for calling all shiga-toxin producing strains of Escherichia coli (E. coli) “adulterants” in our food supply. The USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, which is the entity that has the regulatory capacity to do just this, currently has in its possession two citizen petitions to take this action. In our
NY Senator Gillibrand to Secretary Vilsack: high time to regulate non-O157 E. coli
Is it mere coincidence that the Marler Clark firm’s petition to FSIS asking it to declare non-O157 strains of E. coli as adulterants in meat (submitted October 2009) is being considered in the midst of at least two outbreaks of non-O157 E. coli (O111 and O145)? Or is it proof that there is actually
Risk Posed by Non-O157 E. coli Greater Than Recognized
According to the results of a study recently published by the CDC, the incidence of dangerous and under-reported non-O157 E. coli infection is on the rise. E. coli is the term given to a large family of bacteria. Within that family, E. coli O157:H7 has been recognized as pathogenic to humans. As a result, E.