On Monday, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced new performance standards to reduce Salmonella and Campylobacter in young chickens (broilers) and turkeys, which aims to fulfill a key recommendation of the President’s Food Safety Working Group. The USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) also released a compliance guide to help the poultry industry address Salmonella and Campylobacter and a compliance guide on known practices for pre-harvest management to reduce E coli O157:H7 contamination in cattle.

After 2 years under the new standards, the FSIS estimates that 39,000 illnesses will be avoided each year under the new Campylobacter standards, and 26,000 fewer illnesses will occur each year under the revised Salmonella standards.

“There is no more important mission at USDA than ensuring the safety of our food, and we are working every day as part of the President’s Food Safety Working Group to lower the danger of foodborne illness,” said Vilsack. “The new standards announced today mark an important step in our efforts to protect consumers by further reducing the incidence of Salmonella and opening a new front in the fight against Campylobacter.”—Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack

The standards announced on Monday are the first-ever standards for Campylobacter and mark the first revision to the Salmonella standards for chicken since 1996 and for turkeys since the first standards were set in 2005. The performance standards set a level in percentage of samples testing positive for a given pathogen an establishment must achieve and play a key role in reducing the prevalence of foodborne pathogens and preventing harm to consumers. The President’s Food Safety Working Group has set a goal of having 90% of all poultry establishments meeting the revised Salmonella standard by the end of 2010.

Monday’s announcement builds on the series of steps to enhance food safety taken by the USDA over the past year as part of the Food Safety Working Group, including:

• launching an initiative to cut down E coli O157:H7 contamination, including stepped-up meat facility inspections by starting the testing of additional components of ground beef and issuing new instructions to inspectors asking that they verify that plants follow sanitary practices in processing beef carcasses;
• appointing a chief medical officer within the FSIS to coordinate human health issues within the USDA and FSIS 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;
• issuing consolidated, more effective field instructions on how to inspect for E coli O157:H7 contamination; and
• continuing to develop the Public Health Information System (PHIS) to help the USDA more rapidly and accurately identify trends, patterns, and anomalies in data and thus allow us to more efficiently, effectively, and rapidly protect public health.

By revising current performance standards and setting new ones, the FSIS is encouraging establishments to make continued improvement in the occurrence and level of pathogens in the products they produce. FSIS developed the stricter performance standards using recently completed studies that measure the baseline prevalence of Salmonella and Campylobacter in young chicken (broiler) and turkey carcasses nationwide.

“Preventing foodborne illness is the core mission of the Food Safety and Inspection Service,” said Jerold Mande, Deputy Under Secretary for Food Safety. “We welcome comments on today’s announcement.”

Comments regarding the compliance guides document must be received within the 60 day comment period through the Federal eRulemaking Portal at www.regulations.gov. All submissions received through the Federal eRulemaking Portal must reference the FSIS and include the docket number “FSIS-2009-0034.”

My two cents? I applaud the President for making food safety a priority, but I find it sad that attention to this issue has been sorely lacking by both the USDA (who has jurisdiction over meat and poultry) and US Food and Drug Administration (who has jurisdiction over most everything else we eat) for a long time now.

I hope that these new standards do lead to a reduction in Salmonella and Campylobacter outbreaks, but you can also do your part to keep your family safe:

1. Practice food safety at home. Keep yourself informed about food recalls and alerts, learn how to prevent food poisoning from bacteria and viruses, and get tips and techniques to keep specific foods safe at www.foodsafety.gov/.

2. Eat local. Locally-produced food travels through less hands and machines during preparation, packaging, and shipment. It also travels far fewer miles to the point of sale. Both of these factors mean that there are a lot less opportunities for local food to become contaminated.

I bet you knew I’d get the local thing in there somewhere, didn’t you?