By STEPHANIE STROM
In a ruling that appeared to side with
consumers, the Agriculture Department announced that it would expand testing
for E. coli in raw beef trimmings beginning next week.
The announcement came on the heels of a
decision on Wednesday by the Food and Drug Administration to deny a
petition by the Corn Refiners Association to change the name of the sweetener
high-fructose corn syrup to corn sugar on nutrition labels.
“We think they both got it correct, although
to varying degrees,” said Dr. Michael Hansen, a senior staff scientist at the
Consumers Union.
Dr. Hansen said the F.D.A.’s ruling on corn
syrup was particularly important, since some consumers have adverse reactions
to high-fructose corn syrup and might have been misled by a change in the name.
“The only sweetener they really can eat is dextrose, and there is dextrose
called corn sugar, so this could really have had an impact on them,” he said.
He was less impressed with the Agriculture
Department’s decision to begin testing some raw beef products for six
additional strains of E. coli that produce the so-called Shiga toxin — O26,
O45, O103, O111, O121 and O145 — which, like their better-known cousin, E. coli
O157:H7, can cause severe illness and death. “They need to be looking at all
raw beef products, not just some of them,” Dr. Hansen said.
The department first proposed testing for the
additional strains late last year, after the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention reported that the number of confirmed cases of illness caused by
these strains had exceeded the number caused by E. coli O157:H7.
The testing was to start in March but was
delayed after members of the industry protested. The new tests will be done on
raw beef trimmings, which are used in ground beef.
“These strains of E. coli are an emerging
threat to human health and the steps we are taking today are entirely focused
on preventing Americans from suffering food-borne illnesses,” Tom Vilsack, the
secretary of agriculture, said in a statement. “We cannot ignore the evidence
that these pathogens are a threat in our nation’s food supply.”
In a statement, Todd Allen, the vice chairman
for the beef industry’s beef safety committee and past president of the Kansas
Livestock Association, said the industry welcomed the additional testing
because it would help ensure that the safeguards the industry has put in place
are working.
“As an industry, we will continue doing all
we can to raise healthy cattle and provide consumers with safe, wholesome
beef,” Mr. Allen said.
The Corn Refiners Association, which
represents companies like Archer Daniels Midland, National Starch L.L.C. and
Cargill, said the F.D.A. had denied its request on “narrow, technical grounds.”
The F.D.A. ruled that under its definition,
sugars were crystalline in form and thus high-fructose corn syrup as a syrup
could not be called a sugar. “They would have had to change two regulatory
definitions — that of a sugar and that of a syrup — in order to accommodate
what is essentially a marketing ploy by the Corn Refiners, who are upset that
high-fructose corn syrup has a bit of a bad reputation,” said Marion Nestle,
the author of “Food Politics” and a blog of the same name and a professor at
New York University.
In a statement released late Wednesday, Audrae
Erickson, the president of the Corn Refiners Association, said consumers are
confused about what high-fructose corn syrup is. “Consumers have the right to
know what is in their foods and beverages in simple, clear language that
enables them to make well-informed dietary decisions,” she said.
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