
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 25, 1994                   TAG: 9405250168
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: C-7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

MEAT-CONTAMINATION RULES FEARED BACKFIRING

A year after the government required meatpackers to trim away every speck of fecal matter and other contamination on beef, the meat industry says the extra work may cause other health problems for consumers.

The Agriculture Department imposed the so-called ``white glove'' treatment standard for beef carcasses in March 1993 after a deadly outbreak of food poisoning traced to undercooked hamburgers.

Anything that looks like it could be fecal matter, milk or undigested food must be trimmed off. All that foreign matter can carry potentially deadly bacteria such as E. coli O157:H7.

But the meat industry told Congress on Tuesday that carcasses now are being handled too much, that inspectors may be spreading invisible bacteria from one carcass to the next. The trimming knives carry germs. And the delays in getting the carcasses into the chiller may cause bacteria to grow.

``This strategy, in effect, is failing to deliver consumers safer beef and asking them to pay more for it,'' J. Patrick Boyle, head of the American Meat Institute, told a Senate Agriculture subcommittee. He said flashlight-wielding inspectors are going after ``any speck, no matter how small, how minute.''

Tests inside 15 major meatpacking plants have found an increase in microbial contamination, including E. coli, since zero tolerance was imposed in March 1993, he said.

by CNB