In a congressional hearing last Thursday, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois took the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service to task for failing to set egg refrigeration rules mandated by Congress in 1991. The long-awaited temperature standard, which takes effect next month, requires eggs be refrigerated to an air temperature of 45 degrees or below while in storage or shipment to retail outlets, since refrigeration retards bacterial growth. By week's end, the FDA had come up with a similar standard for supermarkets, restaurants, and other institutions. But the rule may not stop salmonella infections, according to the GAO, since FSIS studies show it is the internal temperature of the egg, not air temperature, that should remain at 45 degrees. The proposed regulations may simply add more confusion to the crazy quilt of federal, state, and industry standards on egg safety.
Some states require egg dating on cartons, for example.
Yet there is no federal standard for how long eggs can be sold, even though scientists know that after about 28 days, the membrane around the yolk breaks down, allowing bacteria to multiply. In 1980, only about 6 percent of all salmonella infections were caused by Salmonella enteritidis. It was believed that eggs became contaminated when bacteria from fecal matter were drawn through the shell's pores into the egg. But in 1988, an experiment confirmed that when the ovaries of laying hens were infected with salmonella, their eggs, in turn, were tainted with the same strain. Between 1985 and 1998, the CDC traced 794 outbreaks, resulting in 79 deaths.