Flaws in the current beef inspection policies can lead to debilitating illness. Such policies, according to the New York Times, contribute to practices within the beef industry which led to a vibrant 22 year old becoming paralyzed after eating hamburger meat contaminated with a dangerous strain of E. coli bacteria.

An in-depth investigation of Stephanie Smith’s experience (the woman paralyzed by the infection caused by the bacteria) by Michal Moss at the New York Times revealed that beef bought as “ground beef” is at particularly high risk for contamination and tends to be poorly regulated in terms of quality.

Moss was able to examine confidential grinding logs from the facility that produced the hamburger meat that sickened Smith and found that the beef patties – made by food giant Cargill and labeled “American Chef’s Selection Angus Beef Patties”, were made in Wisconsin from a mix of trimmings and scraps from slaughterhouses in Nebraska, Texas and Uruguay, and from a place in South Dakota that “processes fatty trimmings and treats them with ammonia to kill bacteria”.

The investigation by Moss revealed that the Cargill practice of using various grades of meat and scraps from various sources (a practice followed by most large producers of packaged hamburger because it cuts costs), increases the chance of contamination of hamburger meat in part because of the number of steps involved at multiple processing plants. The chance of contamination is also increased because of the multiple places in which food monitoring and inspection can break down.

Moss found that several of the meat processing plants that contributed ingredients to the ground beef likely eaten by Smith appear to have a history of engaging in practices that could lead to contamination. Greater Omaha -- the company that likely contributed the most meat to the patty eaten by Smith, is currently being sued by workers who say they "were not paid for the time they need to clean contaminants off their knives and other gear before and after their shifts". Moss also found that another company that contributed to Smith's hamburger patty -- Lone Star Beef Processing, had, in a letter dated a few days before her patty was made, said that “to this date there is no guarantee for pathogen-free raw material."

 

While the investigation identified several policies in place at the US Agriculture Department that contribute to increased risks for contamination (including problems with facility monitoring), one of the key policies that appears to contribute to problems with E coli making it from processors into ground beef includes monitoring E coli contamination solely using spot checks rather than requiring that producers do internal testing on individual meat components before putting them in the meat grinder.

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