by Jere Downs, @JereDowns –
(Photo: Eurofins)
When Eurofins microbiology manager Meghan Styke talks to food producers who send samples for testing to her new Louisville laboratories, chances are the sometimes deadly threat of listeria bacteria comes up.
“The question I get is: ‘What should we be doing that we’re not?’” said Styke from the Eurofins facility that opened in February in a Jeffersontown industrial park, where there is space to sample 650,000 food specimens and room to double that volume in coming years.
In April, federal officials began a criminal investigation of Dole linked to listeria contamination and the widespread recall that wiped out bagged salads in supermarkets for two weeks in Kentucky, Indiana and across the U.S. last winter. A criminal investigation continues at Blue Bell, where a deadly listeria outbreak swept the popular ice cream from shelves in Kentucky and most states early last year.
Hard evidence from new genetic sequencing techniques is resulting in concrete convictions, beginning last year with federal prison sentences ranging from three to 28 years for four Arkansas executives from Peanut Corporation of America who were found guilty of ignoring conditions that led to listeria-contaminated product in 2015.
“We simply don’t expect to get sick from the food at our favorite restaurant, or from the peanut butter or the eggs or the cantaloupes or the countless other products that we buy at the supermarket,” Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Benjamin C. Mizer said at the Consumer Federation of America’s national conference in April. “That is why food safety is a priority for the Justice Department. Our role in protecting consumer safety is at its apex when consumers can least protect themselves.”
While the wave of new criminal probes continues, new listeria scares have resulted in hundreds of product recalls in recent weeks.
Consumers have received automated phone calls or alerts from Kroger, Costco and other retailers about listeria detected in nuts, trail mix, frozen foods, veggie burgers and granola bars.
Since 2013, eight people in three states have been hospitalized in connection with vegetables that found their way into many products stemming from a CRF Frozen Foods facility in Washington, according to the Food & Drug Administration. The frozen food listeria recalls alone involve more than 500 types of vegetable products and 100 million pounds of food, according to Food Safety News, a trade journal.
The focus on listeria has food industry officials fearful of more vigorous federal enforcement of food safety regulations at the same time that genetic sequencing of blood and spinal fluid samples allows public health officials to trace illness back to foods consumed years before.
“Sometimes when you hear a big scare, people want to react,” Styke said, adding Eurofins is adding capacity to help forward-thinking food manufacturers test and trace genetic markers for pathogens and viruses found on farms and in processing plants to better manage risk, a new frontier in food safety.
The government “is using some pretty cool new techniques,” said Bill Marler, founder of Food Safety News and a litigator leading civil food safety cases since the early 1990s. That’s when E. coli bacteria was the national food poisoning focus, a bacteria linked to hamburger that caught attention after killing four children and sickening 700 in the Jack-in-the-Box outbreak. As a result of meat industry reform, Marler said he now fields perhaps one case a year, instead of hundreds decades ago.
“What I hope is that the fresh food and vegetable industry takes a page out of the meat industry’s success. They are starting to pay attention to figure out ways to deal with listeria in these plants,” he said.
Sickness caused by food poisoning is estimated to take place 9.4 million times annually in the U.S., according to a new report by the Centers for Disease Control.
Unless some victims end up in the hospital, which sparks investigation by health officials, few cases of foodborne illness are actually recorded or tracked by the government. A CDC annual report last week listed 864 recorded outbreaks affecting two or more people nationwide, detailing 13,246 illnesses, 21 deaths and 21 food recalls between 2014 and early 2016.
When people did end up in the hospital, listeria was the culprit in 93 percent of those cases, the CDC report added. Vegetables were implicated in the most outbreaks.
While industry takes action to better monitor the threat of listeria, consumers can protect themselves from the bacteria. Washing hands and produce before it is consumed is advised by the CDC.
Jere Downs can be reached at 502-582-4669, Jere Downs on Facebook and [email protected]
