Food safety body considers new controls to fight E.coli poisoning

Strict new controls in response to increasing cases of E.coli 0157 food poisoning in Ireland are being considered by the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, The Irish Times has learned.

An expert group working for the authority is considering if minced meat should be specially labelled with a warning to minimise risk of infection, as happens in retail outlets in the US. The bacterium, mostly transmitted in meat, has caused 30 deaths in Scotland, while one child has died from it in Ireland in the past three years.

The group, which includes public health specialists, microbiologists and vets, is set to recommend stringent new controls in abattoirs, meat-processing plants and retail outlets, The Irish Times has confirmed. It may also recommend that it be legally mandatory to separate raw and cooked meats in food outlets. The measures are being considered as the working group finalises its report to the FSAI scientific committee. It comes as RTE 1 television's Prime Time is due to broadcast tonight the findings of its survey which claims that "half the country's minced beef is contaminated with animal faeces".

This is on the basis of the finding that 53 per cent of raw minced meat shows significant levels of E.coli, which is considered "an indicator" of faecal contamination. The potentially fatal E.coli 0157 was not detected.

The FSAI chief executive, Dr Patrick Wall, told Prime Time that while ordinary E.coli was relatively harmless, the findings show the route through the food chain that its more notorious version could travel was wide open. "It does show exactly the same route as the dangerous E.coli 0157 could travel," he said.

Prime Time concludes on the basis of its survey that "61 per cent of butchers' samples and 39 per cent of supermarket samples showed significant levels of faecal contamination", while "11 per cent of minced beef contained specific dangerous bacteria, which if given a chance to multiply, can cause serious illness", notably some forms of listeria and clostridium bacteria. This is based, however, on 100 samples taken from butchers' shops and supermarkets and tested at a commercial laboratory.

In a statement yesterday the FSAI noted that the survey sample was small, and stressed that minced beef was "absolutely no risk to consumers" once cooked properly.

Many food products, such as some raw chicken, have some degree of bacterial contamination, but this does not prevent their sale, on the basis that proper cooking easily eliminates dangerous microbes.

E.coli 0157 is killed very easily by cooking at an elevated temperature (above 70C) for two minutes, but can cause severe infection from just a small number of bacterial cells, particularly in very young children, older people and those with a compromised immune systems. Inferior cuts are more likely to be contaminated.