People hate Wal-Mart. Especially in college towns, where life would be idyllic if everyone had a salary of at least an associate professor, and where one doesn’t fit in without at least three disparaging Wal-Mart comments per conversation about shopping habits.

The children of these people go to elementary and secondary schools, and some may get fed through the school lunch program.

So it’s encouraging to note the U.S. Department of Agriculture has enacted what they call tough new food safety standards for ground beef purchased by the Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) for Federal food and nutrition assistance programs including school lunches.

All it took was a couple of features in USA Today to raise the public’s ire, and awaken dozens of dozing bureaucrats.

As reported in Feb. 2010, the new standards follow a USA Today investigation that revealed that beef bought by the USDA for school lunches is not tested as rigorously for bacteria and pathogens as beef bought by many fast-food chains. The newspaper also reported that some food producers have been allowed to continue supplying the school lunch program despite having poor safety records with their commercial products.

I have such low expectations of government. As I told USA Today back when, 

“Does it have to be government? They’re not very good at this stuff.”



And as noted by others in those stories, the lesson is that organizations with great buying power — such as fast-food chains or the school lunch program — can set higher standards, and industry ultimately will meet those standards because that's where the money is. The school lunch program purchases huge volumes of commodities such as beef, poultry and other staples –– $830 million worth in 2008.

So it’s about time. Kids, you’re still just another brick in the wall.

Ham and cheese on a bun. That was my 1979 high school staple whenever I needed to inject myself with calories. However, I usually brown bagged lunch, because I hated spending my hard-earned money on crap.

Today’s USA Today reports that data kept by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that norovirus caused at least one-third of the 23,000 food-borne illness cases reported in schools from 1998 through 2007. The toll: about 7,500 sick children, USA TODAY found. Those figures represent just a fraction of all cases. Investigators suspected but couldn't confirm norovirus in nearly 2,000 additional illnesses in schools during that period, and the CDC says many more cases go unreported.

Although such outbreaks often begin in the cafeteria, more than 8,500 schools failed to have their kitchens inspected at all last year, and another 18,000 fell short of a requirement in the Child Nutrition Act that calls for cafeteria inspections at least twice a year, USA TODAY found. The mandate is part of the National School Lunch Program, which provides food for 31 million schoolchildren across the nation. Almost every school in the United States receives food as part of the program.

The purpose of the inspection requirement is to ensure that the facilities and workers comply with safety and sanitary requirements — from checking food temperatures to wearing gloves.

But the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the school lunch program, acknowledges that the rule is almost impossible to enforce. It is supposed to be a requirement to receive food as part of the lunch program, but

"The predominant source of norovirus infections are food handlers," says Michael Doyle, director of the University of Georgia's Center for Food Safety. "If it's a norovirus infection," he says, kitchen workers "are where I'd look first."

Today’s USA Today has a feature story today about meat served in the U.S. school lunch program and asks why certain batches of meat were excluded from a Salmonella-related recall and outbreak last year. What stands out is that the U.S. Department of Agriculture initially refused to match suppliers with positive test results as part of an analysis of 146,000 tests for bacteria including salmonella and E. coli.

USDA spokesman Bobby Gravitz wrote in an e-mail to USA Today that divulging their identities "would discourage companies from contracting to supply product for the National School Lunch Program and hamper our ability to provide the safe and nutritious foods to America's school children."

The newspaper appealed the USDA's decision. On Monday, the department released the names of the companies.

Although one company, Beef Packers Inc., appeared to stand out for the wrong reasons – in 2007 and 2008, its rate of positive tests for salmonella measured almost twice the rate that's typical for the nation's best-performing, high-volume ground beef producers, USA TODAY found -- the company kept getting government business. Since 2003, Beef Packers has garnered almost $60 million in contracts.

That sounds eerily familiar to what happened in the 2005 E. coli O157 outbreak in Wales that killed five-year-old Mason Jones (left) and sickened another 160 kids eating their school lunches, where buyers were quick to look the other way to save a pound. A public inquiry into the outbreak concluded the procurement process was, “seriously flawed in relation to food safety.”

One way to push food safety through the system is to demand continuous improvement from suppliers in terms of lowering the number of pathogen positive results. Any consumer-oriented company is going to insist on evidence of such steps or they will take their business elsewhere. Those overseeing school lunches for U.S. kids should demand the same.

What also stands out is that despite the focus on food safety of the feature and an additional heart-wrenching story about a child sickened 11 years ago through the school lunch program, a third story about a company trying to provide low-cost, healthier, natural (whatever that means) school lunches makes no mention of – food safety. The story cites a sample lunch that may now contain fresh lettuce and tomatoes in a wrap, rather than the canned or cooked variety of fruits and veggies. Fresh is great, but introduces an array of microbial food safety and supplier management issues that isn’t even mentioned. Sorta ironical.

 

Today’s USA Today offered up its point-counter-point editorial space this morning to the persistent problem of dangerous E. coli in ground beef.

From the newspaper:

Too many Americans get sick and too many die from eating that most all-American of foods, the hamburger. …

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which has seemed confused as to whether its job is to protect consumers or producers, urges testing by hamburger makers and could require it. But it has not done so, apparently because of industry resistance. It should.

A second problem is that it's physically impossible and economically unrealistic to test every bit of meat. … Though numerous studies have shown that irradiation is safe and effective, public suspicion has helped prevent its spread. USDA, which has approved irradiation, needs to counter the myths and campaign for its wider use.

Because producers and the USDA admit that they can't guarantee germ-free meat, they urge consumers to handle ground beef carefully and cook it to 160 degrees, which kills most bacteria. That should be a last line of defense, not a primary one. You shouldn't be taking your life in your hands if the bun holds an undercooked burger.

From the government, U.S. secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack:

The following are just a few key steps USDA has taken recently:

— Launched an initiative to cut down E. coli contamination, including stepped up meat facility inspections to involve greater use of sampling to monitor the productsgoing into ground beef.

— Appointed a chief medical officer within USDA's Food Safety Inspection Service to coordinate human health issues within USDA and build bridges with the public health community and senior leaders throughout the federal, state and local sectors to establish a consistent approach and heighten food safety awareness.

— Issued consolidated, more effective field instructions on how to inspect for E. coli O157:H7 contamination.

— Started testing additional components of ground beef, including bench trim, and issued new instructions to our employees asking that they verify that plants follow sanitary practices in processing beef carcasses.

Protecting public health is the sole mission of USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service, and we will not rest until we have eliminated food-borne illnesses, hospitalizations and deaths.

If only foodborne illness was as cute as a Kevin Bacon and Elizabeth Perkins movie.