Food-Borne Illnesses | Introduction
Laws in place today make meat processing the most highly regulated sector of the American food industry. Because contaminated meat has the potential to cause serious illness and even death among thousands of consumers, the development of an effective, federally regulated meat inspection program was a critical step in the prevention of food-borne illness in the United States. Indeed, America is now widely considered to have the safest meat supply in the world.
Beginning in the late 1800s, when exported salt pork and bacon were subject to inspection for trichinosis, federal laws have mandated the inspection of meat to prevent the spread of food-borne illnesses. Because meat is subject to contamination at many points during processing, careful inspection is necessary to ensure that consumers purchase a wholesome product free from food-borne pathogens. While the benefits to public health are undeniable, the passage of federal meat inspection laws has been surrounded by social, political, and scientific controversy for more than a century.
Heated debate followed the passage of the Meat Inspection Law of 1891. According to economist E.C. Pasour of North Carolina State University, this landmark legislation was not enacted to protect consumers from disease caused by contaminated meat. Rather, it was passed in response to unfounded charges by small meat packers that the large packers of the day—Swift, Armour, Morris, and Hammond—were selling unsafe beef. Pasour maintains that smaller slaughterhouses could not compete with larger houses and thus started rumors that the larger companies were selling tainted meat. The stories of unsafe beef frightened domestic buyers and ultimately harmed the export market. Soon, large and small meat packers alike were clamoring for federal meat inspection to prove to consumers that beef was safe to eat. The passage of the Meat Inspection Act of 1891, Pasour argues, was the federal government’s political response to an economic problem, not a public health issue.
Less than twenty years after the Meat Inspection Act of 1891 was passed, an obscure Socialist writer published a novel depicting the supposed human degradation, animal cruelty, corruption, and filth associated with meatpacking. The novel stimulated cries for more government regulation of the industry. Upton Sinclair had hoped that his book, The Jungle, would focus attention on the evils of capitalism and the plight of oppressed workers. Instead, readers were appalled by the few pages he devoted to a description of the gory and unsanitary conditions under which meat was processed. “I aimed at the public’s heart,” Sinclair later wrote, “and by accident I hit it in the stomach.” Demand for beef dropped as the book became increasingly popular. Beef exports were hurt as well. Winston Churchill, not yet prime minister of Great Britain, said that The Jungle “pierces the thickest skull and most leathery heart.”
Most historians and Sinclair biographers agree that he spent little time in the Chicago slaughterhouses he called “Packingtown” and did not witness or even speak with people who experienced the horrors about which he had written. Whether The Jungle was an accurate description of slaughterhouses or not, it stimulated a public outcry that resulted in a congressional investigation of the meatpacking industry—and ultimately led to passage of the Meat Inspection Act of 1906. Then-president Theodore Roosevelt, who ordered the investigation, was skeptical of Sinclair and wrote in a letter to William Allen White in July 1906, “I have an utter contempt for him. He is hysterical, unbalanced, and untruthful. Three-fourths of the things he said were absolute falsehoods. For some of the remainder there was only a basis of truth.” Despite his contempt for Sinclair and The Jungle, Roosevelt signed the Meat Inspection Act along with the Pure Food and Drug Act (which banned adulterated food and unsafe patent medicine) on June 30, 1906.
Lawrence W. Reed of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy argues that the Meat Inspection Act of 1906, like the act passed in 1891, had less to do with public health and more to do with profits. He writes: “When the sensational accusations of The Jungle became worldwide news, foreign purchases of American meat were cut in half and the meatpackers looked to new regulations to give their markets a calming sense of security.” Nevertheless, despite the fact that the new legislation was passed mainly out of economic considerations and cost the taxpayers of the day $3 million, it did provide for more meat inspectors, new regulations for smaller slaughtering operations, and stricter regulations for larger facilities. Consumers were satisfied that Roosevelt had responded to the will of the people and used the power of the federal government to ensure a safer meat supply.
The Poultry Products Inspection Act of 1957 (which added the inspection of interstate-bound poultry to the list of federal inspection responsibilities) and the Wholesome Meat Act of 1967 and the Wholesome Poultry Act of 1968 (both involved scrutiny of plant facilities and processes, not just carcasses) marked the only changes in meat inspection laws for the next ninety years. Trained inspectors continued to rely on their experience and the “poke and sniff” method to determine the wholesomeness of meat. If meat moving down a slaughterhouse packing line looked fresh and wholesome, did not smell as if it were spoiled, or feel spongy or slimy, it was given a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) approval stamp. Unfortunately, the “poke and sniff” method could not detect the presence of Salmonella or E. coli, two food-borne pathogens that can sicken and even kill consumers.
The inherent limitations of the “poke and sniff” inspection method eventually had fatal consequences. A deadly outbreak of E. coli in 1993 was traced to undercooked hamburgers eaten at a Jack in the Box restaurant in the Pacific Northwest. Hundreds of people in the area became ill and several children died. USDA guidelines and consumer education materials were revised, now recommending that processed beef be cooked at a higher temperature to kill E. coli. However, consumer organizations like Safe Tables Our Priority (STOP), an activist group started by the mothers of children who had died in the Jack in the Box E. coli outbreak, demanded more. According to STOP, “After numerous, substantive contacts with USDA officials . . . S.T.O.P. became a key player in facilitating the first meat and poultry inspection reforms in over 90 years; reforms that included microbial testing for animal fecal contamination [the source of E. coli].”
The federal government again responded to a public outcry for safer meat, and in 1996, then-president Bill Clinton made the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) system part of a new inspection law. The HACCP system involves identifying points in a processing plant where contamination is most likely to occur and finding methods to prevent it. Each plant can design its own HACCP system but must meet certain federal standards. Then-secretary of agriculture Dan Glickman said, “Rather than catching problems after they occur, we will now focus on preventing problems in the first place.” A key point in the HACCP system involves microbiological tests of raw meat and poultry to detect E. coli and Salmonella. Clinton said at the time, “These new meat and poultry contamination safeguards will be the strongest ever. They are flexible and they do challenge the private sector to take responsibility. They also use the most up-to-date science to track down invisible threats.”
Although the HACCP system represented a vast improvement over the Meat Inspection Act of 1906, critics insisted that it did not go far enough. Under the HACCP, company workers were expected to keep records of how well the system was working. For example, companies were required to test for E. coli, but no federal inspector would oversee the tests or the final results. In a June 30, 2000, decision (American Federation of Government Employees et al., v. the U.S. Department of Agriculture et al.), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that it was the duty of federal employees—USDA employees not meatpacking plant employees— to determine whether a product was adulterated or unadulterated. The Court of Appeals ruled unanimously that federal inspectors have a statutory duty to examine meat and poultry carcass-by-carcass.
The passage of federal meat inspection laws over the past century represents the government’s most significant effort at preventing food-borne illnesses. In At Issue: Food-Borne Illnesses, authors consider the causes of and evaluate possible solutions to this ongoing public health threat.
