The meat industry had lobbied to eliminate the salmonella testing in school ground beef, which was imposed by the Clinton administration last summer. Seven major meat industry groups, in addition to the American School Food Service Association, wrote to Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman on March 21 asking that the standard be eliminated. Consumer activists who met with Veneman last week said that they brought the subject up with her then. The activists said that she did not appear well informed on the subject, but several deputies in the room asked for and received additional information. The new standards were posted on the USDA website on Monday.
Consumers deserve better.
No one should be duped into accepting someone's 'guess' at a standard as a public health protection. More than 26 million children participate in the school lunch program. The USDA has purchased 111 million pounds of ground beef for the program since last July, when the tougher new rules contracts went into effect. Critics of the testing said that it raised the cost of ground beef and sometimes made approved meat unavailable to schools. Salmonella poisoning in a variety of foods causes 1.4 million illnesses generally diarrhea and intestinal distress and 600 deaths a year in the United States, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.