Meat Tied To Camp Outbreak Recalled

J. Michael McMahan, an environmental health supervisor with the state Health Department, said Virginia health officials obtained the box of meat July 28, one day after the department first received reports of ill campers.

"In this case, we got extremely lucky that we got a box of product left we could test," McMahan said. "That's really fairly unusual in an outbreak."

The Food Safety and Inspection Service said an investigation is continuing into the meat's contamination and distribution. However, because the meat was not sold in stores, the agency will not, as a matter of policy, release a list of the places to which it was distributed, Reiser said.

"Because [consumers] can't buy this in the retail store, that's one of the reasons we don't provide the specific information," she said.

Asked whether the agency would alert all the institutions that received recalled meat, Reiser wrote in an e-mail, "We will be following up to make sure they were contacted by whichever company provided the product."

E. coli contamination can occur in beef during the slaughter and packing process, experts said. The bacteria are found on the animals' hides and in their intestines, and when meat is ground and mixed, supplies can become tainted.

Alan Lambert, Scout executive for the Boy Scouts of America's National Capital Area Council, said that he was pleased to hear of the recall and that he hoped it had come in time to prevent further infections.

"We're real happy that they found the source of this, and we hope that it hasn't caused anybody else the pain we've seen with our Scouts," Lambert said. "And we hope they recalled it fast enough."

Virginia health officials said this week that tainted beef was high on the list of possible sources of the outbreak, even as they continued to scour the camp for other possible sources. Lab tests found no contamination in the camp's water. One theory being explored is that partially frozen raw ground beef was handed out to campers to cook themselves and was not cooked well enough to kill harmful bacteria.

Novak said that in his experience, it is often difficult to lay blame for a food-borne outbreak in any one place. The meat might have been contaminated in a slaughterhouse, improperly refrigerated during distribution and then undercooked by the consumer. All of those things would contribute to illness.

"In every situation, you sort of have to say, 'Could this have been avoided?' " he said. "Perhaps. But unless someone wants to live in a plastic bubble, it's sort of impossible to eliminate all risk."

McMahan put it another way: Consumers should just assume meat has pathogens and cook it accordingly, to an internal temperature of 165 degrees Fahrenheit.

"It's unrealistic to think that raw animal products are going to be sterile," McMahan said. "You have to assume there are bugs in them."

At least 5.58 million pounds of meat have been recalled this year because of E. coli contamination, Reiser said.