I work at the US Meat Animal Research Center, which is one of 100 or so labs operated by the USDA, and specifically by the Agricultural Research Service branch. In 1993, when there was an outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 at a Jack in the Box restaurant in the Northwest, the then-secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy came here and encouraged us to get involved.

“To really make a difference in controlling E. coli O157-H7, we had to understand where it was coming from, how it gets into the carcass, and how it finds its way into ground beef.”

We’ve been involved ever since, trying to come up with the technology to control E. coli O157:H7 in the red meat supply. At the time I was the section leader for a group of 8 to 10 scientists and we were working on food safety and food quality. We were working on E. coli O157:H7, but not to the extent and with the heightened awareness that we have been. Since that day in 1993, it has literally consumed everything we do, and we now have 15 scientists working on it.

To really make a difference in controlling E. coli O157-H7, we had to understand where it was coming from, how it gets into the carcass, and how it finds its way into ground beef. With that knowledge, we could develop interventions—ways to interfere with that process at critical steps.

Nobody had that information until we did this research, which is one reason why it’s a landmark paper in the field. We got the commercial industry to let us go into processing plants, take samples when the cattle come into the plant and all the way through to the finished product, with several steps in between, so we could track where E. coli O157:H7 comes from, where it goes, and how it gets there, step by step.

It was the first time that anyone had gone to a processing plant and done detailed sampling and analysis.

At the time we did this project, we did not know whether we could ship samples. We really didn’t know anything about E. coli O157:H7. So we actually built a trailer, a mobile laboratory, and we would take this lab and our entourage to all the processing plants to do the measurements. Since then we’ve learned by experimentation that we can ship samples.

Well, before we did this work, everyone thought feces was the source of E. coli O157:H7, and that’s how it ends up on the carcass and gets into the ground beef. There was a tremendous amount of work going on at the time and, indeed, there still is, trying to come up to with an intervention to give to cattle before slaughter to make sure they are free of E. coli O157:H7 and so they don’t and can’t spread it through their feces in the processing plant. Our work showed that hides are the source of E. coli O157:H7 at the processing plant, not the feces. That was a huge discovery and that’s had tremendous impact on industry practices. And in that sense, it was a surprise.

On the other hand, like everything else we do, we went into the project with an open mind. So we didn’t actually know what to expect or what we would find. In that sense we were not surprised. It was nice to learn, though, that we could get a good handle on where E. coli O157:H7 is coming from in these plants, and that has been the basis of many significant innovations that are now currently used in industry.

What you say is correct, but we’re looking specifically at the source and how to control it in red meat. With spinach and other vegetables and fruits, the source will typically be feces from animals. It could be wild animals; it could be domesticated. Ultimately, you’re working on trying to control it in live animals. Our strategy is that this is a big problem, and we want to control it as fast as we can, and so we don’t have time to do any holistic approach although we’re working on them. Right now, we’re working on bacterial phages and other methods to control E. coli O157:H7 in live cattle and if we’re successful, that would control the problem in meats as well as fruits and vegetables.

But our immediate target is to take care of the problem in ground meat. So if E. coli O157:H7 is specifically on the hides of cattle coming into the processing plant, then what do we do? So industry has now spent a tremendous amount of time on training to remove the hide properly and minimize the chances of the pathogen getting onto the carcass itself. That part alone has had a tremendous effect in reducing E. coli O157:H7 infections. The second thing we did is develop a hide-washing process, like a carwash. Now when the cattle first come into the processing plant, they go through this hide-wash system and it kills E. coli O157:H7 and that, too, has had a tremendous impact.

In a typical feedlot, you have thousands of cattle, which are then put in pens with between 70 to 200 cattle in a pen. Very few of these cattle might actually shed E. coli O157:H7 in their feces, but it only takes one, because of the commingling, for the E. coli O157:H7 to get on the hides of many of them. Then when the cattle get to the processing plants, it’s the hides that are the primary source.

Absolutely, it is tremendously effective. And if you look at the CDC data and at the Food Safety Inspection Ground Beef Monitoring data, you’ll find that the presence of E. coli O157:H7 has come down dramatically in processing plants since our publication. In 2000, 0.86 percent of the national ground beef supply was contaminated with E. coli O157:H7. Today it’s 0.17 percent. That’s a remarkable improvement.

We’re continuing to work on interventions in the processing plants to improve the conditions there, and we’re also working on the pre-harvest site, to come up with interventions: something we can give the cattle that will prevent shedding of E. coli O157:H7. Right now we don’t really have anything that works, but we’re hoping to come up with something in the next couple of years.

That we, at a scientist level and industry and the government, every one of us, are really concerned about this problem. It’s our life’s work to provide the safest foods to the American consumer and we are doing our very best to get there. One thing that motivates us is that it’s children, the elderly, and the immuno-compromised who are most affected by E. coli O157:H7, and so the better we are at our jobs, the more children’s lives will be saved. That’s what drives us, and we work around the clock because of it. Like we tell each other, if saving the lives of little children doesn’t motivate you, you’re in the wrong business.

One thing I have to add is that consumers have their roles to play here also. Remember you’re dealing with a raw product, and you have to be careful. There is a tremendous amount of information available on the web about how to prevent contamination in the home. Consumers have to educate themselves, as well. industry, government, and scientists are all working diligently to improve safety, and I think we have the safest food supply in the world. I travel around the world and I believe that wholeheartedly. But we can still do better. We’re working toward that goal and everyone else has to work as well.