Thursday, December 27, 2007

Regarding the Dec. 21 Business article "Beef's Wake-Up Recall":

The Agriculture Department must do more than rethink safety rules for ground beef. The current system is designed to reduce, not eliminate, E. coli and other hazardous bacteria. We're still eating hamburger contaminated with deadly germs, and our children are getting sick and dying.

Improved processing has reduced positive samples to 0.2 percent, but that means that 1 in 500 pounds of raw ground beef contains E. coli. Recalls are not particularly effective. On Dec. 20, the Agriculture Department ordered the recall of meat contaminated with drug-resistant salmonella that had been sold between Sept. 19 and Nov. 5. How much of that remained uneaten?

More thorough cleaning, additional testing and more frequent inspections might conceivably cut contamination in half, at considerable cost. But is 1 in 1,000 -- or even 1 in 5,000 -- an acceptable contamination rate for our children's food? We need a definitive step to kill any harmful bacteria that remain after processing. Safe, effective and inexpensive technology -- irradiation -- is available now. Ground beef from a few forward-thinking processors already is irradiated, as are most spices and an increasing number of tropical fruits.

The Agriculture Department and beef processors are dithering while children are dying. It's time for ground beef to be routinely irradiated.

HARRY F. HULL

St. Paul, Minn.

The writer is a consultant to the Minnesota Beef Council, which favors beef irradiation.