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As Americans prepare to cook and consume nearly 50 million turkeys on Thanksgiving Day, an outbreak of salmonella poisoning related to poultry means that food security at home is more critical than ever.
Federal health officials have not identified any single source of the Salmonella Reading outbreak, which has left at least 164 people sick in 35 states in the past year.
Since Nov. 5, the bacterial strain has resulted in 63 hospitalizations and, in California, one death.
Many people who became ill said they have prepared or eaten products such as ground turkey, turkey pieces and whole birds. Some had pets that ate raw food for the turkey; others were working in turkey processing plants or living with someone who was doing it.
Thursday night, Barron, Wisconsin-based Jennie -O Turkey Store Sales LLC company recalled more than 91,000 pounds of raw ground turkey that could be linked to the disease.
The United States does not require turkeys or other poultry to be free from salmonella – including antibiotic-resistant strains such as that related to the outbreak – so prevention is largely up to consumers.
This means that you have to recognize that the Thanksgiving turkey that you take home from the grocery store is probably contaminated, said Jennifer Quinlan, associate professor in the Department of Nutritional Sciences at Drexel University. .
"They absolutely have to assume that there is a pathogen," she said.
Last year, just after the holiday season, Quinlan and his colleagues interviewed more than 1,300 American consumers about their turkey handling habits. Most, they found, do not follow safe practices, despite decades of public health warnings.
Ninety percent of those surveyed washed raw birds in the sink, although this can spread dangerous bacteria. Fifty-seven per cent said they always rummage or sometimes turkey before cooking instead of cooking salad dressing separately and 77 per cent left a bird cooked in a hot oven or at room temperature.
Such practices may allow growth not only of salmonella but also of other bad bacteria, such as Campylobacter and Clostridium perfringens, she said.
"All these diseases could have been avoided. There is either cross-contamination at home or incomplete cooking. "
Other experts say that it is unfair and ineffective to tell consumers to handle food properly. Regulators and the industry should be responsible for preventing contamination in the first place.
"They should be attacking these guys like gangbusters," said Carl Custer, a food microbiology consultant for food safety, who has spent decades at the US Department of Agriculture. "It's a seriously virulent strain."
This month, Custer reiterated its calls for salmonella pathogenic strains to be declared adulterant in poultry, forcing the USDA to test products and recall those contaminated with the bacteria.
The USDA rated E. coli O157: H7 as adulterant in ground beef after the deadly Jack in the Box hamburger epidemic in 1993. After that, the rate of these E. coli infections dropped. Since then, the agency has designated six additional strains as adulterants in some beef products.
Efforts to ban the presence of drug-resistant salmonella in meat and poultry, however, have stagnated, despite many years of demands from consumer advocacy groups and legislators.
In February, USDA officials dismissed a 2014 petition from the Center for Science in the Public Interest group to declare some drug-resistant strains of salmonella as adulterants, claiming that the group's # He had not sufficiently distinguished between resistant and non-resistant salmonellae.
In 2015, Democratic woman Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut and Louise Slaughter of New York introduced a bill that would define resistant and dangerous salmonella as adulterants and give the USDA new powers to test and recall contaminated meat, poultry and eggs. This was not promulgated.
"It is very difficult to draw attention to food security issues in the current political climate," said Sarah Sorscher, Deputy Director of Regulatory Affairs at CSPI.
External observers said there was little political will to engage in the US $ 5 billion turkey industry, as well as regulators.
"I do not see a lot of momentum to make it an adulterer at the moment," said Kirk Smith, director of the Minnesota Integrated Center for Food Safety.
"Salmonella is still widespread enough to make it extremely impractical and expensive to make it an adulterant," he added. "It would double the cost of poultry."
In a very clear statement, the USDA officials declined to publicly name the producers, suppliers and brands related to the turkey outbreak, claiming that it would be "totally irresponsible and reckless" when they were not allowed. no specific source of disease has been identified.
As the epidemic strain of salmonella has been discovered in turkey processing plants, workers and a wide range of food products, considerable effort will be required to detect and eradicate the source, said Smith, food safety expert in Minnesota.
"It should be a holistic approach, starting with on-farm controls, while educating consumers as best we can," he said.
JoNel Aleccia
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JoNel Aleccia
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