Labels on raw meat products in most supermarkets will soon include the appetising information that they may contain bacteria. Dunnes Stores and Superquinn already have these labels on minced beef. Supervalu, Centra and Tesco will soon follow suit. "It could hardly be described as a marketing ploy," says Dr Wayne Anderson, chief specialist (food science) with the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI). But, however offputting it may appear, it is the type of information that could literally save your life.
Consumers who follow the safe handling and cooking instructions considerably reduce their risk of food poisoning and its possible complications. Food poisoning tends to conjure up images of bouts of inconvenient interaction with the toilet, in the realm of the embarrassing rather than dangerous. However, some bugs, such as certain strains of E. coli are potentially life-threatening, to vulnerable groups such as the very old, the very young or the immunocompromised.
E. coli is part of the normal gut "flora" - a cocktail of mainly beneficial microbes in the digestive tract of man and beast. Mostly, it lives there happily, not causing any problems. That was, until one particular E coli strain, not content with its own genes, began to assimilate others.
Dr Anderson points out E. coli O157:H7 (to give it its full title) has taken on genetic information from other organisms. "Quite amazingly it didn't just acquire the ability to produce a toxin but it also acquired other abilities that enabled it to infect humans."
These two virulence factors make it an ugly customer. "This is a bug that wasn't around 30 or 40 years ago. It's a new bug. It's a new threat. It's been causing problems in humans from the 1980s onwards and is very very nasty with a reasonably high mortality rate and a very high morbidity rate. We believe it has a very low infectious dose and it goes for the vulnerable groups: old people, young children and pregnant women," he says.
It can cause kidney failure, and if you don't die from it, you could end up with damaged kidneys, he says. The FSAI takes E. coli O157 very seriously and in 1999 produced a comprehensive report "The prevention of E.coli 0157:H7 infection - a shared responsibility".
Whether this report played a role in reducing food poisoning generally since is a moot point, but last year's preliminary statistics on food poisoning in the Republic are encouraging. The National Disease Surveillance Centre compiles figures for food poisoning notifications other than salmonella and these show a steep climb from 100 cases in 1995 to 1,673 in 1999. However, the number dropped back to a provisional 1,552 in 2,000.
A review of the notification process is currently being undertaken by the NDSC and a draft document notes that the list of notifiable diseases has not been subject to regular review so emerging diseases such as E coli 0157 are not notifiable. It became notifiable in the US in 1994. It is likely that we will follow suit soon.
Meanwhile, food poisoning isn't something that just happens to consumers. Dr Anderson is of the opinion that people can take control of their own lives and protect themselves. The FSAI report notes the domestic kitchen represents the last line of defence against food contamination and E. coli infections. "VTEC is now established as one of the bacteria normally present in the digestive tract of livestock and it is not yet feasible to eliminate it from animals. We must, therefore, reduce the risk of VTEC contamination of foods by taking appropriate steps at all stages of the food chain. Thorough cooking of foods destroys this bacterium."
When the FSAI commissioned a survey in 1998, it found consumer awareness of potential hazards of food was patchy. Fewer than 40 per cent of men and young adults said they always followed storage and preparation instructions on food packages, or were likely to wash utensils and chopping boards between preparing raw meat and cooked food. Only 7 per cent knew the correct temperature for storing refrigerated foods.
Equally, the standards of domestic kitchen equipment especially fridges, freezers and mircowaves is very important for food safety in the home. The Irish public will soon be asked to open its fridges to food science researchers. A three-year project, designed to find out what is in residence in these fridges, will begin next June. Funded by the Food Safety Promotion Board, researchers at Teagasc National Food Centre and Ulster University are collaborating on the search for bugs that frequent our fridges. Dr Declan Bolton, of Teagasc, adds: "we would expect to have survey results within 18 months. To achieve this, we need the cooperation of the Irish public as it is intended to visit 2,500 homes throughout the country." The project will also examine current consumer practices which may contribute to food poisoning and then target these in future consumer education programmes."
Unfortunately for the consumer, no matter how careful he or she is at home, the food chain is lengthening and the number of processing steps increasing. And the consumer has little or no say over steps controlled by producers, processors, distributors, caterers and retailers. On the plus side, the FSAI, and other bodies, such as Bord Bia, have been working with the farming, agribusiness and food industry in an attempt to clean up the food chain . . . literally, in some case.
"Industry is taking this very seriously. For instance, a clean cattle initiative has been put in place by the Department of Agriculture. Really filthy cows will no longer be processed because when you split the hide the meat could be contaminated (by faecal matter). Some companies are now using vacuum clippers to clip the midline before they split the hind. Others are looking at steam pasteurising the whole carcass before they cut it up," Dr Anderson says.
E. coli O157 is one of series of O strains: O26, O111, O103, and O145 cause the same symptoms and are increasingly emerging within the Irish context. Dr Lisa O'Connor of the FSAI says these other strains are found in central Europe, South America and Australia while Ireland, the UK and North America mainly recognise O157. Two cases of E. coli O26 have been identified here. Dr O'Connor says the incidence of strains other than O157 may be on the increase here but their recognition could also be a function of better identification procedures.
Next Monday: Campylobacter - ignored for too long, now the biggest source of Irish foodborne infection.