USDA bought beef linked to
E. coli in kids
![[]](/blackdot.gif)
Meat for school lunch came from plant with record of health violations; 12 children fell ill
By Elliot Jaspin and Scott Montgomery
American-Statesman Washington Staff
Published: March 28, 1999
FINLEY, Wash. -- As battles go in the war with the deadly E. coli bacteria, what happened last October in this dusty little town would seem a minor skirmish.
Twelve children got sick, but no one died. Although state officials are convinced meat in a school lunch caused the outbreak, the source was never conclusively determined, and the supplier denies any fault. Five months later, the E. coli 0157:H7 outbreak is remembered much like a bad summer storm that briefly threatened but passed on.
Finley's apparently toxic lunch reveals the risk children face because of the way the U.S. Department of Agriculture runs the country's school lunch program, according to the findings of an investigation by Cox Newspapers, which include the Austin American-Statesman.
The USDA, which donated the ground beef for Finley's tacos, bought the meat from a plant with a history of E. coli contamination and repeated serious food-safety violations. The plant was the low bidder.
"That's outrageous. Safety violators shouldn't be allowed to participate in the lunch program," said Nancy Donley, president of Safe Tables Our Priority (S.T.O.P.), a citizens' group long concerned with E. coli issues.
"The USDA should be putting them out of business, not helping them stay in business," said Donley, whose 6-year-old son died in 1993 of E. coli poisoning.
Finley's problems began Oct. 6, 1998, when the school served a taco lunch to the children at Finley Elementary school. Within days, at least 12 children became violently ill from E. coli. When the condition of four of the children worsened, they were transferred to Seattle's Children's Hospital for blood transfusions and, in one case, kidney dialysis.
Genetic testing showed that all the children became infected when they ate the same food. The most likely source of the infection was the ground beef in the tacos, even though health officials said they did not find E. coli in the leftovers.
Northern States Beef Co., which produced the ground beef, cites the negative tests as proof it was not the source of the outbreak. But health officials say such seemingly contradictory findings are not unusual, because E. coli contamination is often restricted to one small portion of ground beef.
Investigators said it was more significant that when they examined the leftover taco meat, they found that some of the ground beef was undercooked. Heat-sensitive E. coli bacteria would be able to survive and infect the children only if the meat were improperly cooked.
They also said that with one exception, the illness was restricted to children who ate the school lunch. The exception, a 2-year-old who lives in the neighborhood, is thought to have been infected through contact with one of the schoolchildren.
What the townspeople in Finley never knew -- because federal officials never told them -- was that in the 18 months before the government purchase, the Agriculture Department's own inspectors found 171 "critical" violations of U.S. food safety regulations at the Northern States Beef plant.
A critical violation is defined by the Agriculture Department as a plant condition that is certain to cause food contamination.
Federal records show inspectors cited the plant repeatedly for the same kinds of violations. For example, the plant amassed 64 critical violations in 1996 for the failure of its pre-operational sanitation procedures such as cleaning equipment.
In addition to food-safety violations, federal officials linked the Northern States plant to an April 1994 E. coli outbreak that sickened at least 18 people in Nebraska.
The Northern States Beef plant had more violations than most other plants of its size in 1996, the last year for which complete records are available. By comparison, a plant in Nebraska operated by Hudson Foods -- with 90 critical violations in 1996 -- was forced to halt production in 1997 after it had the largest recall of E. coli-tainted ground beef in the history of the meat-inspection program.
Government purchases
Despite Northern States' track record, government records show that the Agriculture Department purchased more than 20 million pounds of beef from the plant as part of its commodities program. Yet under federal law, the track record for Northern States Beef should have been taken into account before the government purchased meat from the plant.
USDA spokesman Andy Solomon said food graders are in each plant as meat is being prepared for the school lunch program. Although he said these officials do not test for E. coli, they do test for spoilage, which Solomon said indicates in a general way the cleanliness of a plant.
Solomon added that the government did take single samples for E. coli at the Northern States plant in 1997, 1998 and 1999, and all three samples were negative. By contrast, the Jack-in-the-Box hamburger chain does E. coli testing every 15 minutes at plants that supply it.
Philip Shanholtzer, a spokesman for the USDA's Food and Nutrition Service, which distributes the commodities, said his agency does not check the safety of meat used in the school lunch programs. Instead, he said, the Food Safety and Inspection Service acts as USDA's meat and poultry safety agency.
It was inspectors for the Food Safety and Inspection Service who detailed the problems at the Northern States Beef plant in Omaha.
Lynn Phares, a spokeswoman for ConAgra, which owns Northern States Beef, said there is no proof that meat from that plant played any role in the Finley outbreak.
"(Government) tests were negative," Phares said, "So it's perplexing to us that they (Washington State health officials) would say this."
She also said it was "inconclusive" whether her company had any role in the 1994 E. coli outbreak. Although she acknowledged the tainted ground beef came from the Northern States plant, she said some of the meat used to make the ground beef came from other plants.
Local health officials in Washington state were unanimous in the opinion that the school lunch caused the outbreak.
"Rational thought leads you to the taco meat," said Dr. Larry Jecha, the district health officer for the Benton-Franklin Health District. He said county health officials found evidence of undercooked ground beef -- a common source of infection -- in the taco meat, all but one of the children ate the meal, and the genetic signature of the pathogen that infected everyone was identical.
State health officials like David Gifford agree. "The logical conclusion was that it was the meat," he said.
Dr. Phillip Tarr, a Seattle expert in E. coli outbreaks, summed up the Finley evidence, saying, "Absence of proof does not mean proof of absence."
Federal responsibility
Health officials in Washington state said that while all meat should be considered dangerous and be cooked thoroughly, that does not excuse federal officials from trying to provide meat that is wholesome.
"The higher the risk, the more care should be taken," argues Bruce Perkins, a county health official. "Maybe the better way (to provide meat for school lunch programs) is to see who has the best inspection records and buy from those people."
The Agriculture Department buys large quantities of beef and pork through its commodities program for two reasons. One goal is to support food prices when the market has gone soft, and the second is to supply schools, soup kitchens and other social-service organizations.
In 1998, the USDA spent more than $219 million buying more than 209 million pounds of frozen and canned meats. Most of the meat is given to schools nationwide.
"I'm shocked," said Alan Almquist, father of one of the children made sick, when told about the USDA role. "It's like the government is approving of this."
Almquist's son was one of four children who had to be transferred to Seattle Children's Hospital more than 200 miles away as their condition worsened. "I can't tell you how close my son came to dying," Almquist said.
The parents' dismay was echoed by Robert Van Slyke, superintendent of the Finley schools. The USDA's silence outraged him, he said.
Van Slyke said federal officials had a responsibility to tell him about the source of the beef before the school cafeteria workers used it and, after the outbreak, to disclose what they knew.
"If they knew (about the violations) and didn't say, how far can we go in trusting what they say now?" he said.
Yellow Pages
