Monday, October 05, 2009
Eating hamburger meat is not unlike playing Russian roulette. Despite a federal regulation adopted in 1994 banning slaughterhouses from selling meat containing a particularly virulent strain of E. coli (O157:H7), hamburger sold by Cargill in 2007 found its way to stores. The meat was consumed by a young woman, dance instructor Stephanie Smith, who fell so ill doctors had to place her in a coma for nine weeks just to save her life. She awoke paralyzed, because of what the bacteria had done to her nervous system.
An investigation by The New York Times found that ground beef was responsible for 16 outbreaks of E. coli in the last three years alone. This tends to happen because hamburger is a mixture of beef from different parts of a cow, and even from different slaughterhouses, which are not required to test their grinders for the pathogen. In Smith’s case, the hamburger patty she ate, although labeled “American Chef’s Selection Angus Beef Patties,” actually consisted of ingredients from four states and Uruguay, including a South Dakota company that treats fatty trimmings with ammonia to kill bacteria.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
E. Coli Path Shows Flaws in Beef Inspection (by Michael Moss, New York Times)
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