[Senate Hearing 106-283]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 106-283
EGG SAFETY: ARE THERE CRACKS IN THE FEDERAL FOOD SAFETY SYSTEM?
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT,
RESTRUCTURING AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA SUBCOMMITTEE
of the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JULY 1, 1999
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Governmental Affairs
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
59-578 cc WASHINGTON : 1999
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For sale by the U.S. Government Printing Office
Superintendent of Documents, Congressional Sales Office, Washington, DC 20402
COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
FRED THOMPSON, Tennessee, Chairman
WILLIAM V. ROTH, Jr., Delaware JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut
TED STEVENS, Alaska CARL LEVIN, Michigan
SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii
GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois
PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico ROBERT G. TORRICELLI, New Jersey
THAD COCHRAN, Mississippi MAX CLELAND, Georgia
ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania JOHN EDWARDS, North Carolina
JUDD GREGG, New Hampshire
Hannah S. Sistare, Staff Director and Counsel
Joyce A. Rechtschaffen, Minority Staff Director and Counsel
Darla D. Cassell, Administrive Clerk
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, RESTRUCTURING, AND
THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio, Chairman
WILLIAM V. ROTH, Jr., Delaware RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois
JUDD GREGG, New Hampshire ROBERT G. TORRICELLI, New Jersey
Kristine I. Simmons, Staff Director
Marianne Clifford Upton, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Julie L. Vincent, Chief Clerk
C O N T E N T S
------
Opening statements:
Page
Senator Voinovich............................................ 1
Senator Durbin............................................... 3
WITNESSES
Thursday, July 1, 1999
Lawrence J. Dyckman, Director, Food and Agriculture Issues, U.S.
General Accounting Office, accompanied by Steve Secrist, San
Francisco Regional Office...................................... 6
Morris E. Potter, D.V.M., Director, Food Safety Initiatives, Food
and Drug Administration, U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services....................................................... 8
Margaret Glavin, Associate Administrator, Food Safety and
Inspection Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture............. 11
Michael F. Jacobson, Ph.D., Executive Director, Center for
Science in the Public Interest................................. 25
Jill A. Snowdon, Ph.D., Director of Food Safety Programs, Egg
Nutrition Center............................................... 27
Keith Mussman, Co-Owner, Mussman's Back Acres, on behalf of the
United Egg Producers........................................... 29
Harold ``Butch'' DeVries, Jr., Vice President and General
Manager, Mallquist Butter and Egg Company...................... 31
Alphabetical List of Witnesses
DeVries, Jr., Harold ``Butch'':
Testimony.................................................... 31
Prepared statement........................................... 180
Dyckman, Lawrence J.:
Testimony.................................................... 6
Prepared statement........................................... 41
Glavin, Margaret:
Testimony.................................................... 11
Prepared statement........................................... 74
Jacobson, Michael F.:
Testimony.................................................... 25
Prepared statement with and attachment....................... 80
Mussman, Keith:
Testimony.................................................... 29
Prepared statement........................................... 169
Potter, Morris E.:
Testimony.................................................... 8
Prepared statement........................................... 55
Snowdon, Jill A.:
Testimony.................................................... 27
Prepared statement with and attachment....................... 122
APPENDIX
``The Incredible Edible Egg, A Natural For Any Foodservice
Operation,'' by the American Egg Board, submitted by Ms.
Snowden........................................................ 151
Food Animal Concerns Trust (FACT), prepared statement............ 190
L. John Davidson, Pasteurized Eggs, L.P., Laconia, New Hampshire,
prepared statement............................................. 211
Letter from Lawrence J. Dyckman, Director, Food and Agriculture
Issues, GAO, dated July 22, 1999, in response to the letter
dated July 14, 1999 from Senator Voinovich..................... 217
Questions and responses for Morris E. Potter, from Melinda K.
Plaisier, Interim Associate Commissioner for Legislation,
Department of Health and Human Services........................ 218
Questions and responses for Margaret Glavin, from Thomas J.
Billy, Administrator, Food Safety and Inspection Service, U.S.
Department of Agriculture...................................... 223
EGG SAFETY: ARE THERE CRACKS IN THE FEDERAL FOOD SAFETY SYSTEM?
----------
THURSDAY, JULY 1, 1999
U.S. Senate,
Oversight of Government Management, Restructuring,
and the District of Columbia Subcommittee,
of the Committee on Governmental Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:08 a.m., in
room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. George V.
Voinovich, Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding.
Present: Senators Voinovich and Durbin.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR VOINOVICH
Senator Voinovich. Good morning. Unfortunately, Senator
Durbin and I--and anybody else who is here--are going to have
to excuse ourselves around 10:45. We have to go down and cast a
vote, and we will adjourn the hearing at that time and rush
back so we can continue with the hearing.
We call this morning's hearing ``Egg Safety: Are There
Cracks in the Federal Food Safety System?'' The Subcommittee on
Oversight of Government Management, Restructuring, and the
District of Columbia is going to focus on the Nation's egg
supply and the extent to which the Federal food safety
infrastructure is adequate or inadequate to ensure that the
eggs we eat do not pose a health risk.
I would first like to address the health risk posed by eggs
which has prompted greater scrutiny of egg inspection
practices. That risk is Salmonella enteritidis which, for the
sake of ease, I propose we refer to as ``SE'' for this hearing.
This bacteria is a relatively new threat, and it was only
identified as a public health problem in 1988. Apparently,
there has been a mutation in the Salmonella bacteria, and SE
can now be passed directly from hens to their otherwise
healthy-looking eggs.
According to the Center for Disease Control, not all hens
infected with SE pass it on to their eggs, and the number of
eggs thought to be infected is one in every 20,000, or 3.4
million out of 67 billion eggs produced in this country every
year. I am sure that there may be some other statistics, but
those are the ones that we are using.
This has created a health risk in eating undercooked or raw
eggs that simply did not exist before. Eating an infected egg
does not always result in illness. Proper refrigeration limits
bacterial growth, and cooking eggs at 160 degrees Fahrenheit
destroys SE. For illness to occur, eggs must be contaminated at
the farm or during processing and then handled improperly,
inadequately refrigerated, undercooked, or consumed raw.
Since the late 1980's, the number of SE cases grew until it
peaked in the mid-1990's and has declined somewhat since then.
The Center for Disease Control estimates that in 1997, the last
year from which accurate figures are available, over 100 deaths
and 300,000 illnesses were attributable to SE contracted
through infected eggs. My wife contracted Salmonella when she
was overseas, and you get very, very sick with it. And so if
you talk around 300,000, that is 300,000 pretty sick people,
and we were worried about her.
The segments of the population most at risk from SE are, of
course, the very young, senior citizens, and individuals with
deficient immune systems. Between 1985 and 1998, approximately
68 percent of deaths attributable to SE occurred among nursing
home residents. They are the most vulnerable.
A cursory glance at the current oversight system for egg
safety would seem to indicate that it is indeed fragmented. The
question for the Subcommittee is to determine whether the
fragmentation is affecting the safety of our Nation's egg
supply. Four agencies within two separate Federal Departments
have jurisdiction at different times over eggs during the
production and distribution cycle. There are many specific
examples of this that will be discussed by witnesses from the
General Accounting Office and others here today.
In addition, most of the 50 States split responsibility for
egg safety between their health and agricultural services, and,
finally, private industry polices itself. My understanding is
that the egg industry has taken the threat of SE seriously, and
has implemented some measures to mitigate the risk. So often we
think that the only way that we can have good health and safety
is that it has to be regulated, but I think conscientious
people that are in the business are doing what they can
internally to do the job.
Therefore, it seems to me that there are three important
questions which we have to answer today. One, from a good
government point of view, how can the current egg safety system
in this country be better organized and managed; i.e., can you
do a better job with all the agencies that are out there? Are
they doing the job that ought to be done? We will start with
that.
Second, do the health risks of SE warrant going in and
saying that the current system, even if it was improved
substantially, is inadequate to get the job done, and that we
should reorganize and combine and so on?
And last, but not least, are there some short-term things
that need to be done? In other words, is there, within the
current framework, something that can be really zeroed in on
that can deal with this problem and substantially reduce the
threat of SE?
Hopefully, we are going to get some answers from the
witnesses here today. I am sure they have a little different
point of view, and that is why we have you here.
I would now like to yield to the distinguished Ranking
Member of this Subcommittee, Senator Durbin, for an opening
statement, and I must tell you that if it wasn't for Senator
Durbin, we wouldn't be here today. He has spoken to me often
about the importance of this reorganization, and he has been
here a lot longer than I have and it has been a passion with
him. Senator Durbin, I am sure you have an opening statement
that will underscore why you are so concerned about this
situation.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR DURBIN
Senator Durbin. Thank you, Chairman Voinovich, for doing
this, and I believe that your cooperation demonstrates that
this is truly a bipartisan issue. We are all interested in food
safety, Democrats, Republicans, Independents alike. And the
fact that this hearing is taking place clearly indicates your
level of interest.
What really precipitated it was this GAO study, and we will
hear a lot about it today. If you stacked all the GAO studies
produced each year, it probably would reach the height of the
Washington Monument. They are important, requested by Members
of Congress in most instances to look into various problems.
But, unfortunately, most of them go unread and unheeded.
This is an exception. It is an exception because we learned
as late as yesterday, just a few days after this report came
out, that the administration has announced that it got the
message, that it is going to start making some dramatic changes
when it comes to the question of food safety involving eggs.
I am glad to see that, and I am happy that the Clinton
administration has been responsive on the food safety issue,
and I hope that they will stick with us. There is more to be
done, and I hope that we can continue on a bipartisan basis to
achieve it.
Let me say at the outset, before we say anything else, eggs
are a wholesome, nourishing, and economical food. Let me add
this: Everyone I have spoken to in the government levels, from
the agencies as well as the General Accounting Office, has said
that the people in the egg industry have been cooperative
throughout this whole effort. That is an encouraging thing, and
I hope that that spirit of cooperation will continue today not
only through the hearing but as we talk about ways to improve
the safety of this important food product.
Eggs are perishable. They need to be handled with care. And
perishable products always have a degree of risk, but the risk
is manageable.
This issue of foodborne illness when it comes to eggs was
really dramatized last year by a program on television,
``Dateline,'' which focused on some things that were being done
by egg handlers and packagers which, frankly, are unacceptable.
And I think that this report and this debate and this
Subcommittee hearing will move us forward, and I want to
commend the folks at ``Dateline'' for bringing this matter to
national attention, at least to a higher level of national
attention.
Now, make no mistake, America has been blessed with one of
the safest food supplies in the world. But we can do better.
Foodborne illness is a significant problem, as the Chairman has
said. GAO estimates 81 million people will suffer food
poisoning each year and 9,000 will die. Children and the
elderly are especially vulnerable. There is a threat from
emerging pathogens such as Salmonella enteritidis--and I hope
one of us has pronounced it right, I am not sure; I will call
it ``SE,'' too, so it gets us both off the hook--which was
virtually unheard of before the mid-1980's.
How big a problem is this? Let me show you some headlines
from the Richmond, Virginia, newspaper. And this is not an old
story. Unfortunately, it is a new story, June 12, 1999:
``Salmonella-tainted eggs at a popular restaurant in Richmond,
Virginia, were determined to be the cause of a recent outbreak
of foodborne illness that left 7 people hospitalized, 92 with
documented Salmonella infection, and nearly 200 people claiming
illness late May,'' according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
The restaurant chain involved here learned their lesson and
announced when they were reopening that they were going to be
extremely careful in using pasteurized and processed eggs that
would avoid Salmonella contamination.
But that is why this is a real problem. Statistics can be
pushed back and forth by both sides, but I think everybody
understands that we want to increase consumer confidence in our
entire food supply, and certainly when it comes to eggs.
In terms of medical costs and productivity losses,
foodborne illness costs the Nation $37 billion a year. The
Department of Health and Human Services predicts foodborne
illnesses and deaths will increase 10 to 15 percent over the
next decade. American consumers spend about $617 billion a year
on food, $511 billion spent on foods grown here in the United
States and the rest imported. Our ability to assure that the
safety of our food and to react rapidly to potential threats to
food safety are in the forefront of our consideration are
critical not only for public health but also for the vitality
of both domestic and rural economies and international trade.
I would like to address for a moment the issue of consumer
confidence, and I would like folks to put it in the context of
what is going on in Europe today. Many of you followed the
dioxin crisis in Belgium which literally closed down their food
industry. Days before the national election, eggs, poultry,
beef, pork, and dairy products were pulled from the shelves in
Belgium. Countries worldwide have restricted imports of eggs,
chickens, and pork from the European Union. Part of the
controversy in Europe is the failure of government to win the
confidence of consumers. People lose confidence and panic
unnecessarily when their government doesn't step up to meet its
responsibilities. From mad cow disease to dioxin, we cannot
afford to ignore these lessons regarding government's role in
effectively and efficiently managing food safety.
A credible Federal food safety system assures consumers and
makes our products more acceptable here and abroad. Everyone
shares that responsibility in ensuring food safety--Federal,
State, Local Government, industry, and us as well, the
consuming public.
The administration stepped forward on the issue of food
safety, and I commend President Clinton and Secretaries
Glickman and Shalala for their leadership. I want to
acknowledge as well the list of accomplishments by agencies
represented by Dr. Potter and Ms. Glavin today. Although in
today's hearing we will examine egg safety, where much work
remains to be done, I want to commend the dedication of the
professionals in both departments and our Federal agencies who
are committed to improving the safety of the food supply.
Industry and State Governments also have a record of which
we can be proud. It is clear the egg industry has stepped
forward itself and taken the lead in developing such things as
quality assurance programs. I want to work with the United Egg
Producers to solve the challenges we face, and I ask for their
input in developing legislation. How well is our government
managing the safety of food from farm to table? Currently, the
Federal food safety system is fragmented with at least 12
different Federal agencies and 35 different laws governing food
safety, 28 different House and Senate subcommittees with food
safety jurisdiction. It is no surprise with this overlapping
jurisdiction that there is lack of accountability. An example
of this, of course, is the FDA and USDA regulating eggs, which
is the focus of today's Subcommittee hearing.
Last summer, I asked the General Accounting Office to
evaluate how well the Federal Government was doing. GAO has
completed the report which I mentioned earlier. It shows gaps,
inconsistencies, and inefficiencies. What is even more
disturbing is to discover, in the absence of uniform Federal
regulation, that States have established their own, creating a
patchwork of varying regulations. This was a difficult
undertaking for our staff, but we tried to map each State's
different egg safety regulations. We couldn't put it all on one
map. They are so different and so diverse. Marianne, if you
will show the two different maps, we can get into this later,
but the State laws are all over the place. And I think it
argues for a consistent national standard based on good science
and consumer food safety.
Later this month, the Subcommittee will have a hearing on
creating a single independent food safety agency, an idea which
my colleagues and I have introduced in legislation, the Safe
Food Act of 1999. But GAO has been unequivocal in its
recommendation for consolidating Federal safety programs, and
those recommendations go back perhaps to 1977 or before. This
has been an issue even before this Subcommittee which goes back
2 or 3 decades. The fragmented Federal regulatory structure
remains an obstacle to a comprehensive, consistent, and
effective food safety and egg safety strategy.
I welcome the witnesses and their insights. The GAO report
is excellent, and I thank you for the good work that you put
into it. In the coming weeks, we will try to develop
legislation that takes some of your recommendations.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Voinovich. Thank you, Senator Durbin.
I think that the public should understand that this
Subcommittee's title is the Subcommittee on Oversight of
Government Management, Restructuring, and the District of
Columbia. Senator Durbin and I have talked about it, and we are
going to really try and follow up on the responsibilities of
this Subcommittee and pay particular attention to the GAO
studies that have been done so that we can get at some of these
things that for a long time have been just laying on the shelf.
This Subcommittee's Chairman had several hearings with the
Department of Energy. The thing that really was striking to me
is every single year they came back with a report saying there
is a problem, there is a problem, there is a problem, and
nothing was done about it. And now we are back at it again.
Hopefully, that will be taken care of.
So I think, Senator, that you have raised a real issue,
something that has been around for a while, and I think we
ought to attack it and make a decision.
We are lucky to have such good witnesses here today. First
of all, I would like to introduce our first panel of witnesses:
Larry Dyckman is the Director of Food and Agriculture Issues at
the U.S. General Accounting Office. Good to have you here. Ms.
Margaret Glavin is the Associate Administrator, Food Safety and
Inspection Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Dr.
Morris Potter is the Director of Food Safety, Food and Drug
Administration, Department of Health and Human Services. Both
are here, Dr. Potter and Ms. Glavin, on behalf of the
administration. We thank you for coming, and we look forward to
your testimony.
I would like to start out with Mr. Dyckman.
TESTIMONY OF LAWRENCE J. DYCKMAN,\1\ DIRECTOR, FOOD AND
AGRICULTURE ISSUES, U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE, ACCOMPANIED
BY STEVE SECRIST, SAN FRANCISCO REGIONAL OFFICE
Mr. Dyckman. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Senator Durbin.
With me today is Steve Secrist from our San Francisco regional
office. He is a senior evaluator who has been responsible for
much of the work that I will be talking about today.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Dyckman appears in the Appendix
on page 41.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
We want to thank you again for the opportunity to discuss
our work on the safety of eggs and egg products. My testimony,
as you know, is based on a report we are issuing today to
Senator Durbin. Eggs are an important part of most American
diets. I might tell you that my wife eats several eggs a day.
She watches her cholesterol and she eats the egg whites, but
she enjoys them very much. On average, each American consumes
about 245 eggs annually. But over the last decade, eggs
contaminated with Salmonella enteritidis bacteria, which we
will all refer to as ``SE,'' have increasingly been implicated
as the cause of foodborne illnesses in the United States. SE
may have caused about 300,000 illnesses in 1997, according to
the CDC, resulting in up to 230 deaths. Most SE outbreaks with
identified causes are linked to eggs.
The Senator spoke about the case in Richmond. We have been
in touch with the Virginia State officials, and they have 121
confirmed cases of illnesses connected to SE infection. And
they believe eggs are the likely cause of those infections.
It is important to note at the onset that responsibility
for ensuring that eggs are safe to eat is shared among four
Federal agencies and two departments, and often two agencies in
each State. As the blue exhibit shows, the process begins under
the authority of USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection
Service, which ensures that egg-laying hens are bred free of
SE, and continues under the authority of FDA, which is
responsible for egg safety on farms where eggs are produced.
That chart is on page 5 of the written testimony. It is also in
our blue book report if it's difficult to follow for people in
the room.
At the processing stage, either FDA or USDA's Food Safety
and Inspection Service may have authority, depending on whether
the eggs are sold whole in the shell or broken to create an egg
product. Shell eggs may also be graded for quality by another
USDA agency. Once transported to the retail level, both shell
eggs and egg products are under FDA's authority, but the
millions of restaurants, institutions, and other retail food
operations throughout the United States are generally inspected
by either a State agriculture or health department.
The number of agencies involved is a key factor in the
problems documented by our review. Clearly, the egg situation
is a case study of the cross-cutting and duplicative problems
that we have reported to this Subcommittee and to many other
committees in our series on major management problems and
challenges facing government agencies. It was also reported as
a major management problem concerning food safety in general in
our report concerning the Department of Agriculture.
Our work in this particular review found that neither FDA
nor USDA requires the egg farms and processing plants under
their authority to use a prevention-based approach that would
identify control and monitor known safety risks. Over the last
few years, the Federal Government has introduced such programs
referred to as Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point
systems in meat, poultry, and seafood processing.
At the State level, 13 States responsible for about two-
fifths of the Nation's egg production have established
voluntary prevention-based programs for egg farms. However,
these programs differ in critical areas such as when and how to
test for the presence of SE.
Although refrigeration retards the growth of SE, our work
found that the first national requirement to refrigerate eggs
at 45 degrees or colder from the time they are packed until
they reach the consumer may not, for a variety of reasons,
effectively reduce safety risks. The responsibility for
implementing and enforcing the requirements will be split
between USDA and FDA. USDA has issued regulations which will
take effect later in August requiring that eggs be refrigerated
during storage and transportation. We found out today,
actually, that FDA is in the process of proposing regulations
for retail locations, restaurants, and grocery stores, and we
are encouraged by that. We haven't seen them yet, but it is
good to hear that they are on their way.
In addition, many experts believe that safety risks could
be better reduced by controlling eggs' internal temperature.
The regulations will focus on air temperature rather than on
the internal temperature. Yet eggs are often in the 70- to 80-
degree range when they are processed and packed, and it may
take up to 6 days before the internal temperature is reduced to
the air temperature in the cooler.
Our work also found inconsistent policies and practices in
three other areas. Certain groups, including the elderly in
nursing homes, are more likely to suffer severe health
consequences from eating contaminated eggs. Yet only about half
the States have followed FDA's recommendation that they require
food service operators to use pasteurized eggs or egg products
when serving vulnerable populations.
Also, Federal policies allow some eggs, as we have learned
from the ``Dateline'' news show, to be returned from grocery
stores for processing to be repackaged, re-dated, and returned
to the retail level for sale. Moreover, Federal rules on how
expiration dates are used on eggs vary considerably.
Finally, we found that the involvement of the four Federal
agencies enforcing a variety of laws make it difficult to
direct resources to the greatest safety risk or to effectively
coordinate egg safety policies. For example, USDA by law
provides daily full-time inspection of plants where eggs are
pasteurized to kill harmful bacteria, whereas FDA almost never
inspects egg farms where eggs can be contaminated.
Mr. Chairman, in your invitation to me, you posed a
question, and I would like to answer that question right now,
and the answer is: Yes, the Federal food safety program for
eggs is cracked, disjointed, it is duplicative, and it is not
always risk-based. We are offering some recommendations that we
think will address those problems.
First, to address the need for a consistent farm-to-table
approach to egg safety, the report we are issuing today asks
the Congress to consider consolidating responsibility for egg
safety in a single Federal Department.
We are also recommending: First, that FDA develop a model
prevention-based program for egg farms and processing plants
which States can adopt to reduce the risk of SE contamination;
second, that the USDA develop regulations that would require
prevention-based programs at plants where egg products are
processed; and, third, that USDA and FDA jointly study the cost
and benefits of implementing rapid cooling techniques in egg
processing and packaging operations.
In commenting on our draft report, USDA and FDA generally
agreed with our recommendations. We would be happy to answer
any questions you or Senator Durbin have.
Thank you.
Senator Voinovich. Thank you very much.
I would like to remind the witnesses that their entire
statements are going to be entered into the record, and to the
best of their ability, if they could limit their statements to
5 minutes, it would be most appreciated.
We will now call on Dr. Potter for his testimony. Dr.
Potter?
TESTIMONY OF MORRIS E. POTTER, D.V.M.,\1\ DIRECTOR, FOOD SAFETY
INITIATIVES, FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Mr. Potter. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Senator Durbin. I
am Morris Potter, Director of Food Safety Initiatives at the
Food and Drug Administration, and I am pleased to be here with
my colleague, Maggie Glavin, from USDA to testify on the
government's role in the oversight of egg safety and to
describe how we have applied science to protect the public's
health.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Potter appears in the Appendix on
page 55.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
HHS, USDA, and the States have a long history of working
together to understand and initiate actions along the farm-to-
table continuum to reduce the risk of SE. Federal surveillance
and research efforts have been critical to our better
understanding of SE and efforts to develop science-based
control schemes from farm to table.
In the early 1980's, routine public health surveillance
identified SE as a growing public health problem, as you see in
the first part of that upper figure. In 1986, outbreak
investigations linked this growing problem to contaminated
whole shell eggs. FDA, CDC, ARS, APHIS, and AMS immediately
responded by working together and with State Governments,
universities, and the egg industry to conduct research and to
put into place prevention and control mechanisms as that
information developed.
To control a public health problem like SE in eggs, one
must first understand it. Surveillance of human illness,
laboratory research at ARS, FDA, and universities, and field
investigations have all been essential to that understanding.
Data from CDC's Salmonella surveillance system show that SE
infections increased more than 8-fold from 1976 to 1996, as you
can see by making a composite of that top--the lines in the top
figure.
Another valuable data source early in the outbreak was the
surveillance of outbreaks of infections with SE. States
reported 26 SE outbreaks in 1985 when that surveillance system
started. By 1990, the number of reports had increased to 85.
There were strong regional differences in the number of
outbreaks just as the chart reflects strong regional
differences in the number of infections.
Many SE outbreaks have been attributed to food served in
commercial establishments, such as restaurants, hospitals,
schools, nursing homes, and most were associated with food that
contained undercooked eggs. Most deaths linked to reported
outbreaks have occurred among the elderly in hospitals and
nursing homes.
These two characteristics, the association with undercooked
eggs and commercial establishments, emphasized the importance
of nationwide adoption and enforcement of FDA's Food Code which
first focused attention on proper egg handling in 1990. The
Food Code contains special guidance for food handling in
institutions to try to reduce the risk particularly for those
vulnerable populations. The Federal agencies have collaborated
on a number of additional efforts to improve institutional food
service handling of eggs.
In addition to epidemiology, our public health response to
SE in eggs has relied heavily on laboratory science and field
investigations. Design of on-farm control programs required
understanding the organism and its mechanism of action as well
as comprehending the natural history of SE's introduction,
spread, and persistence in the environmental of a laying house.
Universities, States, and industry have conducted many of
the field studies. Since October 1995, FDA has traced eggs from
12 outbreaks back to flocks of origin, additionally leading to
field investigations of 112 laying houses in 9 States.
Various control programs have been tried showing that
combinations that include the use of uninfected replacement
birds, rodent control, cleaning and disinfection between
flocks, and environmental monitoring will reduce the incidence
of infected flocks. Controlling SE during production is crucial
in mitigating the risk of SE in eggs.
Research in this area is being conducted by both FDA and
ARS to uncover all important sources of the SE problem and to
develop ways to maintain SE-free laying hens. As additional
studies are completed, we will be able to determine more
precisely which factors are critical and what performance
standards must be met for optimal public health protection. Our
ability to now move forward on a comprehensive program for
improving the safety of eggs is a direct result of the
investments in research during the past several years.
We can also use surveillance to track the public health
progress we are making to control SE in eggs. As you see in the
chart, SE infections have been dropping since 1996, especially
in the Northeast where control efforts began first and have
been most intense. The data also indicate a downturn in
commercial establishments and the average size of outbreaks.
In 1995, FDA, CDC, FSIS, and five State health departments
began a collaborative project or program called FoodNet to
collect more precise information on the incidence of foodborne
disease. FoodNet recently reported a 44 percent decrease in the
infection rate for SE from 1996 to 1998 in the areas of the
country under surveillance, and you see that in the bottom
figure there on the chart.
Collectively, these systems report substantial decreases in
SE during the past 3 or 4 years. We believe that these data
show that the coordinated efforts of all of those involved in
the farm-to-table handling of eggs contributed to this dramatic
decrease in illness, including Federal agencies, State
governments, the egg-producing industry, retailers and food
service, and consumers. Federal and State efforts to trace back
from outbreaks to infected flocks and to establish egg quality
assurance programs that include microbiological testing and
diversion of eggs from infected flocks to pasteurizing plants
have been important factors in this reported decrease, and we
will continue to work collaboratively to further reduce the
prevalence of SE in laying hens.
But just as these data on the chart demonstrate progress in
the control of SE, they also document a very large public
health challenge that remains to be overcome. We need to finish
the job we started for the public. The joint FSIS-FDA risk
assessment made it clear that all of the steps from the farm to
table can contribute to egg safety, and we will consider all
possible measures to achieve our public health goals.
As you know, FDA has been working on a proposed rule to
address refrigeration and labeling of eggs that is consistent
with the requirements of the FSIS rule. FDA's proposed rule was
put on public display today. It proposes requirements that all
shell eggs be stored and displayed at temperatures of 45
degrees or less, and it would cover shell eggs both in
interstate and intrastate commerce. It proposes safe handling
statements on the labels of shell eggs.
In addition, the President's Council on Food Safety will
create within 120 days a farm-to-table approach for addressing
SE in eggs. This will be part of the Council's overall
strategic plan for food safety that should come out early next
year.
Information from recent research, the joint FDA-FSIS 1998
Salmonella Risk Assessment, and the comments we received on the
joint FDA-FSIS ANPR of May 19, 1998, intended to identify farm-
to-table actions that will decrease the risk of SE in shell
eggs will be used by the task force to help finalize its
recommendations for a strategic plan for a comprehensive system
for the safety of eggs and egg products.
Mr. Chairman, there clearly are complex lines of
jurisdiction over eggs between FDA, FSIS, and AMS. Those lines,
however, are not cracks in the system but seams. We have a long
history of coordinated effort to address the public health
challenges we face in SE in eggs. Much has been done to address
those challenges but more, indeed, is needed. We are committed
to provide the country with a seamless coordinated farm-to-
table policy.
Thank you very much.
Senator Voinovich. Thank you, Dr. Potter. Ms. Glavin.
TESTIMONY OF MARGARET GLAVIN,\1\ ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR, FOOD
SAFETY AND INSPECTION SERVICE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Ms. Glavin. Mr. Chairman and Senator Durbin, I am Margaret
Glavin, the Associate Administrator of the Food Safety and
Inspection Service. I am pleased to appear with Dr. Morris
Potter, my colleague from FDA, to discuss the safety of eggs
and egg products in general, and specifically to discuss the
egg products inspection program of the Department of
Agriculture. Because several agencies at USDA play a role in
egg safety and regulation, I am joined today by Michael
Holbrook of the Agricultural Marketing Service, Dr. Jane Robens
of the Agricultural Research Service, and Dr. Thomas Myers of
the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Glavin appears in the Appendix on
page 74.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Let me begin by emphasizing USDA's commitment to improving
the safety of the food it regulates--meat, poultry, and egg
products. Over the past several years, USDA has implemented a
strategy for change that emphasizes the need to prevent food
safety problems before they happen and the need to address food
safety hazards all along the farm-to-table chain.
FSIS has a long history of inspecting meat and poultry
products, but the agency's involvement in egg products
inspection is relatively new. The USDA Reorganization Act of
1994 set the stage for FSIS involvement in egg products
inspection by transferring this responsibility from the
Agricultural Marketing Service to the Food Safety and
Inspection Service.
Under the Egg Products Inspection Act, FSIS is responsible
for continuous Federal inspection in plants processing liquid,
frozen, and dried egg products. During fiscal year 1998, 102
FSIS inspectors monitored operations at 73 egg product plants
across the country. We also have cooperative agreements with
six States to provide inspection of egg products. Additionally,
FSIS oversees the importation of egg products into the United
States.
I understand the concerns of the current statutory
framework for egg safety presents a fragmented system of
oversight. I do, however, want to make two points: First, that
USDA activities regarding shell eggs and egg products go beyond
FSIS--and that is what my chart indicates--and any effort to
adjust the current statutory framework for egg safety should
consider the broad range of activities carried out by the
Department.
The second point--and it echoes Dr. Potter's remarks--is
that FSIS and FDA, which share statutory authority for egg
safety, have worked closely together and are making progress in
developing a coordinated approach to the problem of SE in eggs
and egg products.
Let me first address the broad range of USDA activities
beyond FSIS by providing a few examples. The Agricultural
Marketing Service administers a voluntary grading program for
shell eggs and is responsible for the shell egg surveillance
program. AMS last year announced a prohibition on the
repackaging of eggs packed under its voluntary grading program
while it studied the issue further, and that agency is now
working on a proposed rule to address this matter more fully.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service conducts
activities related to animal health, and several of its
activities have a public health impact by reducing the risk of
disease in layer flocks. For example, APHIS administers the
National Poultry Improvement Plan, which certifies that poultry
breeding stock and hatcheries are free from certain diseases.
The Agricultural Research Service and the Cooperative State
Research, Education and Extension Service carry out needed food
safety research that helps us to improve the safety of eggs and
egg products. And USDA agencies play a role in educating
consumers about the safe handling of eggs.
FSIS has developed numerous publications on egg safety and
uses a variety of networks to get this information to the
grass-roots level, including the network of the cooperative
extension agents throughout the country.
Regarding the second point, that FSIS and FDA are working
together to address the problem of SE in eggs and egg products,
I would like to provide two examples. In May 1998, FSIS and FDA
jointly issued an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to
initiate a comprehensive and coordinated process of addressing
the problem of SE in shell eggs and to solicit input from the
public on the strategies. And FSIS and FDA have conducted a
joint quantitative farm-to-table risk assessment on SE in eggs
that was released last summer. The risk assessment is helping
us to better evaluate interventions in terms of their public
health impact as we further develop our food safety strategy
for shell eggs and processed eggs.
These joint initiatives complement and provide a framework
for other initiatives taken by FSIS. For example, in August
1998, FSIS published a final rule to implement the requirement
for the refrigeration and labeling of shell eggs that were
mandated by the 1991 amendments to the Egg Products Inspection
Act, and FSIS is now developing a proposed rule that would
address HACCP for egg products.
For the future, more progress is needed, and to facilitate
that progress a strategic plan for shell eggs and egg products
is being developed by the strategic planning task force of the
President's Food Safety Council. It will be completed within
120 days and will parallel the broader strategic planning
effort that is already underway by the Council.
We have certainly not won the war against foodborne illness
by any means, and eggs remain a major source of SE illness. But
the steps we have taken with HHS are making a difference, and
we are committed to further progress.
This concludes my testimony, and I thank you for the
opportunity to be here today with FDA to discuss the safety of
shell eggs and egg products.
Senator Voinovich. Thank you very much. We decided, in
order to move the hearing along, that Senator Durbin will go
and vote, and I will ask my questions, and when he comes back,
he will ask his, and hopefully they will not be the same
questions.
Obviously, the General Accounting Office feels that the
organizational structure leaves something to be desired, and I
would like to call on Mr. Dyckman. You have heard the
testimony, and I would like to have you comment on what you
have heard this morning. Does that color your judgment on this
matter?
Mr. Dyckman. I appreciate the opportunity, Mr. Chairman.
Egg safety is a microcosm of food safety. We have been on
record for many years, as Senator Durbin pointed out,
supporting consolidation of all food safety efforts in the U.S.
Government. And if we had our druthers, that would occur and
egg safety would be part of that consolidation. We recognize
that there are political, social, economic, and other kinds of
implications of doing that, and it may take time before that
occurs, if it ever occurs.
In the interim, we have known about the problem with egg
safety for 11 years. We reported in 1992 that there is a need
for a much better, closely coordinated effort, a common
strategic plan for egg safety. I am encouraged and heartened
that either the work that we have done or maybe it is just time
that the two primary agencies are coming together and seemingly
working for that plan. However, look at our food chart up
there; it took me quite a while to understand this chart. This
review has been my first exposure to egg safety, and I kept
asking my staff, now, let me get this straight: Why does FDA
have responsibility on the farm? Why does Agriculture have a
responsibility for the egg product plants? Who has
responsibility for refrigeration at this point and at that
point? Why do they have differing labeling requirements? Why
aren't there HACCP-like procedures, HACCP-like systems required
at different points? Why isn't the entire system risk-based?
And while I am encouraged by what I hear today, GAO still
believes that there is a need to consolidate egg safety
responsibilities in one Federal agency.
Senator Voinovich. And that is just one of the things. You
are basically recommending that we have food safety
consolidation, period, and that one of the reasons is the issue
of egg safety, but there are many other areas that you feel
could be better addressed if you had a consolidation of those
agencies.
Mr. Dyckman. That is correct. If there was one agency that
had budgetary authority over the Federal Government's food
safety programs, one agency that had authority or one official
that had authority over the research that is done on food
safety, I think it would be a lot more efficient. I think we
would be able to accomplish more as a agency, as a country.
Now, we have among the safest food safety systems in the
world. But I think we can accomplish more and it would be a
much more efficient system if there was one Federal agency that
had all responsibility for food safety. I understand you might
be having a hearing on that later this month, and we would be
happy to help you with that hearing.
Senator Voinovich. From your observations, what role should
the States be playing in this?
Mr. Dyckman. In egg safety?
Senator Voinovich. Yes.
Mr. Dyckman. I think it is quite clear that at the retail
level in particular, and also at the farm level, the Federal
Government doesn't have the resources to police, to monitor all
establishments or even a large fraction of the establishments.
I think the Federal Government has to set minimum policies and
then allow States to develop a more stringent or equal to
Federal minimum policies, whether it is a HACCP-type program at
the farm level or a HACCP-type program at the shell egg
processing plants.
Obviously, many States are moving in that direction. We
noted that there are 13 States that have some type of HACCP-
type program. We are encouraged by that. Some of those are
relatively new, so it is a little too early to evaluate their
effectiveness. States want to work, I believe, as equal
partners with the Federal Government, and I think that is the
way it should be.
Senator Voinovich. In your report are you specific in terms
of the responsibilities that the Federal Government would have
and where the States' responsibilities would be?
Mr. Dyckman. Our report mentions the States'
responsibilities. It doesn't go into a lot of detail in terms
of how they should interplay with the Federal Government in the
future. Clearly, regarding our recommendation for the Federal
agencies to come up with a HACCP-like program or requirement
and model for the farms and for the egg-processing plants,
there will have to be a partnership on the State level to
enforce that because the Federal Government will never have
enough resources to enforce it.
Senator Voinovich. So what you are saying is that there
definitely is a role for the States to be playing.
Mr. Dyckman. An equal role, a very strong role. And, a lot
of this commerce is interstate commerce where the Federal
Government has a clearly defined role. Where it is intrastate
commerce, obviously the States generally have a much stronger
role and the upper hand.
Senator Voinovich. In your report, did you note any State
out there that--you referred to 13 States that have started
HACCP programs. Is there a ``best practice'' State out there?
Mr. Dyckman. I will ask Steve to comment on that.
Senator Voinovich. Yes.
Mr. Secrist. I think Pennsylvania--back in the early
1990's, Pennsylvania was part of a pilot project along with the
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service to look at SE
reduction measures, and then that pilot project ended, but it
became what is now the Pennsylvania Egg Quality Assurance
Program, and that was one of the first, probably the first
comprehensive SE reduction program at the State level. And
subsequent to that, other States have adopted similar measures.
California and some of the other states that we have mentioned
have taken elements of that plan and developed their own plans.
Pennsylvania would be a good model to look at.
Senator Voinovich. Well, as a former governor and chairman
of the National Governors Association, one of the things that I
always felt could be improved was the relationship between the
Federal Government and State Government in this whole
regulatory area, and that the idea of sharing best practices,
getting the directors of the Agriculture Departments together
to talk about best practices, to see if you couldn't cascade
them throughout the country, would be a good idea. I think that
perhaps coming out of this we could be in touch with the
Governors Association to see if we couldn't improve their
coordination, since at least you acknowledged that they have a
role to play here. And I would be interested also, Dr. Potter
and Ms. Glavin, in your opinion of that.
We have heard an argument, and it has been around, on
reorganization. Why not? The system that we have currently--can
it get the job done?
Ms. Glavin. Our focus at this point is very much on
identifying those actions which would include such things as
regulation and research that need to be done in order to
improve egg safety, and we are focused on that rather than on
the organizational issue at this point. We think there is a lot
to be done and a lot that can be done even under the existing
structure.
Mr. Potter. Just to amplify that, I absolutely agree with
what Maggie said, but each of the Federal agencies brings to
the mix its own set of skills that are garnered over the years
due to its involvement in all of the things that it does in
addition to its specific role in the farm-to-table pathway of
eggs. And our efforts to pull together that expertise and those
resources, the intellectual capital of the Federal agencies to
bring to bear on a problem I think has shown itself valuable.
We are committed to a single food safety framework, and I think
that the collaboration among the agencies is starting to show a
measure of progress in achieving our public health goals.
There is a strong role for States in food safety for a
number of reasons. As GAO pointed out, there is a great
resource issue for the Federal agencies to get out to
individual establishments, be they producers or restaurants,
but also there is a relationship, as you know, that builds up
between the State agencies and the producers and businesses in
the States that can help facilitate communication and speed
adoption of good practices.
Senator Voinovich. I am going to have to excuse myself, and
hopefully Senator Durbin will return to the hearing and he will
bring it back into session. But when I get back, I would like
to hear from both of you. We do have the Results Act, and you
have performance plans that you have put together, and I would
be interested to know how much coordination in this particular
area has gone on between your two respective agencies. I will
be back.
[Recess.]
Senator Durbin. If we could ask everybody to resume, I am
going to try to pick up where Senator Voinovich left off. Thank
you very much, and I apologize for the interruption. But we had
a vote on the floor, and Senator Voinovich will be back very
briefly.
I tried to ask my staff to recount briefly the Chairman's
questions, and I hope I don't go over the same ground. I
apologize if I do.
I would like to ask the GAO and other witnesses present if
they will bear with me for a minute, or 2 minutes, maybe, to go
through a primer so that we understand what we are talking
about here.
It is my understanding that this contamination, this SE
contamination, can be detected in chickens before the eggs are
laid. Is that true?
Mr. Dyckman. Yes.
Senator Durbin. All right. It is also my understanding that
the incidence of this contamination in eggs depends on a
variety of factors. One of them, of course, is whether it was
initially contaminated, which we will assume for a moment that
is a possibility. The other is the age of the egg. Is that not
true?
Mr. Dyckman. That is correct.
Senator Durbin. And what kind of standards have you found
in your investigation in terms of the vulnerability of an egg
to contamination? Can you give us any standard?
Mr. Dyckman. What we have found is that there is no HACCP-
based system at the farm level in the production of the eggs
and also at the processing plants. It is not really a risk-
based system. Now, some farms obviously do follow better
sanitary practices than others.
Senator Durbin. My question wasn't clear. What I am asking
for is on the age factor. How old is an old egg? When do you
start getting into the time frame of an egg's age where it is
more susceptible to contamination?
Mr. Dyckman. First, let me say at the onset I am an
accountant, not a scientist, but if you will bear with me, I
think it is about 21 days or so.
Senator Durbin. That it is more susceptible to
contamination. Now, I read 30 to 45 days in the report.
Mr. Secrist. There has been some scientific research that
has been done that shows that at least in that research study
they may have a natural protection against SE replicating,
growing in the egg for perhaps up to 21 days. That is under
certain conditions, assuming that the SE is deposited in the
egg white and that it is under a certain temperature.
What we have found in terms of expiration dating was that
there currently are no Federal standards for expiration dating
on egg cartons and that AMS under the voluntary grading program
only requires a 30-day expiration date if the producer decides
to use a date. They are not required to use a date, but if they
do, it cannot be over 30 days. Otherwise, you can put any
expiration date you want on an egg carton.
Senator Durbin. When do you start counting? When is the
first day? Is it the day that the chicken lays the egg?
Mr. Secrist. It is the date that the eggs are packed.
Senator Durbin. So there could be a period of time between
the chicken laying the egg and their arrival at the packing
house?
Mr. Secrist. Yes, there could be.
Senator Durbin. Do you have any idea what range of time we
are talking about? Is it a matter of 24 hours or days or
longer?
Mr. Secrist. That probably varies. There are obviously in-
line operations where the egg farm is co-located with the
packing plant, and the eggs are coming into those plants very
quickly. It is also possible that eggs might be produced and
shipped to the packing plant and that could take some time.
Senator Durbin. So the question of expiration,
susceptibility to contamination, you really have to start off
with some basic understandings and agreement. When are we going
to start counting and how long will we count? Would there be
disagreement from FDA or USDA on any of the points that have
been made so far?
Mr. Potter. I think only a point of clarification, not a
point of disagreement, and that is that the eggs are
contaminated before they are laid, and what we are really
debating here is opportunities for growth of organisms that are
already there rather than the contamination itself.
Senator Durbin. Do you have a time frame where you think
they are more likely to have this growth of contamination, age
of an egg?
Mr. Potter. The growth of the organism occurs after the
yolk membrane breaks down, which is a function of both time and
temperature. So as the eggs are colder and fresher, there is no
growth. Where precisely--whether it is 21 days or 30 or 45
days--would be modified by the temperature the eggs are kept.
Senator Durbin. And has either the FDA or the USDA
established a standard for when we start counting, how many
days, age of an egg?
Ms. Glavin. As Mr. Dyckman indicated, the grading service
counts from the day of packing for expiration. That is for eggs
that are graded by USDA.
Senator Durbin. And what is your experience in terms of how
many days between the egg being laid and it being packaged?
Ms. Glavin. Again, I would agree with Mr. Dyckman that
varies depending on the kind of process that is used.
Senator Durbin. So if we are going to give the consumer
some peace of mind here and say, now, after 30 days you ought
to think twice about cooking with that egg, we better start by
understanding among ourselves, at government agencies, when we
are going to start counting. If you start counting at the
packing plant, there is no telling how old that egg is when it
is packed. Is that not true?
Let's talk about temperature for a minute, and that is
another element here. If the egg is kept at a certain
temperature, the likelihood of this contamination and outgrowth
is diminished. Is that true?
Mr. Dyckman. Yes, 45 degrees seems to be the temperature
that scientists tend to agree will prevent further growth of
SE.
Senator Durbin. Well, I would like to follow up on that for
a moment, if I might. The testimony of Dr. Potter is that there
is some seamless--your word--relationship and coordination
between the USDA and the Food and Drug Administration. Let's
talk about the seam.
In 1991, by legislation, we instructed your departments to
come up with standards when it comes to the temperature of
eggs, how they are going to be stored and maintained in order
to protect public health. I would have to say by virtually any
measure that both agencies failed in meeting that statutory
responsibility to the point in 1998 where Congress had to put
in your appropriation bill a mandate which said you are going
to lose $5 million if you don't finally come out with this rule
on the temperature of eggs. And so 8 years after Congress gave
the responsibility to your agencies, that rule was finally
issued. Is that true?
Ms. Glavin. Yes, sir.
Senator Durbin. Why did it take 8 years, a pretty wide seam
by anyone's interpretation, for the rule to be issued?
Ms. Glavin. Well, as you said, the law was passed in 1991,
and at that time the responsibility was with the Agricultural
Marketing Service, and they issued a proposal to implement the
rule, the 45-degree rule, in 1992. Shortly after that, there
were a number of legislative proposals to change that law, to
make changes in it, which somewhat complicated the issue. In
1994, the Reorganization Act was passed, and in 1995,
responsibility for egg products inspection passed to the Food
Safety and Inspection Service. And as you indicated, our
appropriations in 1998 told us we better get this regulation
finalized, and we did do so in 1998.
I think it is important to recognize that we were not
sitting on our hands all that time, although I can't disagree
that it was a very long period of time. We did put together a
joint Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking with FDA setting
out a strategy for dealing with egg safety and also seeking
data, mainly from the industry, on which we could make good,
sound judgments about how to regulate in this area.
We also completed the first ever risk assessment on
bacteria in foods, and that was the SE risk assessment, and
that has served us very well as we have moved forward.
Senator Durbin. So it took 8 years.
Ms. Glavin. Yes, sir.
Senator Durbin. Eight years for the U.S. Department of
Agriculture to finally conform to the requirement by Congress
to establish some standard about the temperature of eggs. But
the story doesn't end there because the USDA responsibility,
because of this fractured jurisdiction, stops, does it not, at
a certain point when it comes to the temperature of eggs? And
what is that point in the process?
Ms. Glavin. Well, the responsibility--or the regulation
based on the legislation is for the temperature of eggs during
storage and transportation.
Senator Durbin. So you are not talking about when it
reaches the store or the restaurant or anything of that nature?
Ms. Glavin. It is until it reaches the store or the
restaurant, yes.
Senator Durbin. OK. And so at that point, we have a hand-
off here to a new Federal agency, the Food and Drug
Administration. Now, they are going to take over the question
of the temperature of eggs after the USDA is finished. Is that
correct, Dr. Potter?
Mr. Potter. That is correct.
Senator Durbin. Now, you have known for 8 years this was
coming, and so what has the FDA done? What rule have you
promulgated to talk about the temperature of eggs once it has
reached this point of transportation to the end user?
Mr. Potter. Well, that proposal is on display at the
Federal Register now. It is out and it conforms to the
temperature and labeling requirements of the eggs as they come
to that pass-off.
Senator Durbin. So you don't have an FDA final rule even
after 8 years?
Mr. Potter. That is correct.
Senator Durbin. Now, there is another thing that I want to
get to, and that is, you mentioned 45 degrees, but there is
some confusion here as well. Are you familiar with your Food
Code?
Mr. Potter. Yes.
Senator Durbin. What is it?
Mr. Potter. The Food Code requirement is for 41 degrees----
Senator Durbin. Just in general, what is the Food Code, for
the record?
Mr. Potter. Oh, I am sorry. The Food Code is a model code
for adoption by States that sets uniform standards across the
country.
Senator Durbin. Voluntary for each State.
Mr. Potter. Right.
Senator Durbin. And how many States have passed it or
enacted this Food Code?
Mr. Potter. At present, 14 States have adopted it, and an
additional 22 are in the adoption process.
Senator Durbin. And so when we look at this Food Code, we
keep talking about 45 degrees. We look at the act which you
have sent out to the States in terms of standards, and do we
find 45 degrees is the standard?
Mr. Potter. Well, remember that the Food Code is for all
foods and all pathogens. For some pathogens, like Listeria,
that grow at slightly lower temperatures than Salmonella, a
lower temperature is more appropriate. But restaurants and
other food service establishments are unlikely to have one
refrigerator for things for Listeria and another for
Salmonella.
Senator Durbin. That is right. So what is the standard in
the Food Code?
Mr. Potter. The standard for retail is 41 degrees.
However----
Senator Durbin. Forty-one degrees. Go on. Internal
temperature.
Mr. Potter. That is refrigerator temperature.
Senator Durbin. Forty-one degrees internal temperature for
the eggs is your Food Code standard, and the standard we have
been discussing here is 45 degrees air temperature.
Mr. Potter. I believe the Food Code requirement is 41
degrees ambient temperature. In other words, that would be the
refrigerator temperature setting.
Senator Durbin. We had a different reading on it, but let's
assume that it is 41 degrees under any standard. Think about
this for a second. Think about what we have just discovered. In
1991, Congress passed a law and said to the USDA and the FDA:
We think the temperature of eggs is important to protect
American consumers; please write some rules so that we can
understand how to transport eggs, how to store eggs, so that we
can best protect American consumers.
Eight years pass and only when Congress says in the USDA
appropriation, if you don't finally do your job, you are going
to lose $5 million this year, they do it. They issue it. The
Food and Drug Administration, which is supposed to pick up the
baton after the transportation, then decides they have got to
do it, too. Now we are waiting to see when that rule becomes
final, and in the process, we find that at least there is some
ambiguity, if not inconsistency, in the standard we get from
these two agencies: 45 degrees, 41 degrees, voluntary,
mandatory.
Is it any wonder that we have this GAO report which
questions whether these agencies are conducting a ``seamless
coordination''? I think it is pretty clear that there are some
seams and they are pretty wide.
Let me talk about some other things that I think need to be
talked about. Repackaging. The U.S. Department of Agriculture,
after the ``Dateline'' story, came out--and I am glad they
did--and said for the eggs that we grade there is a prohibition
against taking old eggs off the shelf, bringing them back to
the plant, packaging them with new eggs, for obvious reasons:
Older eggs, more susceptible to contamination.
What percentage of the eggs sold in America are graded by
the U.S. Department of Agriculture?
Ms. Glavin. I believe it is about 30 percent.
Senator Durbin. Thirty percent. That is the figure that I
have, too. So we now have a standard from the U.S. Department
of Agriculture for about a third of the shell eggs that are
sold in the United States, and virtually no standard, at least
no Federal standard, no national standard, when it comes to all
other eggs. Is that correct?
Ms. Glavin. That is correct.
Senator Durbin. Another indication of why we need to start
talking about a national standard. If it is dangerous to a
consumer not to know that they are buying a dozen eggs that
might have a variety of different ages, dangerous enough for
the USDA to issue a standard, then certainly it raises a
question about why this danger shouldn't be a matter of concern
nationwide in terms of what we accomplish.
Let me also, if I can, visit for a second this question of
APHIS, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. They are
involved in the inspection, if you will, of the actual farms
where the eggs are being produced. Is that correct?
Ms. Glavin. They are responsible for something called the
National Poultry Improvement Plan which has to do with the
health of the laying flock, yes.
Senator Durbin. OK.
Ms. Glavin. The breeding flock, I am sorry.
Senator Durbin. The breeding flock. And you can test these
chickens to determine whether or not they are contaminated with
Salmonella. Is that correct? But there is no requirement that
you test them under the law, is there?
Ms. Glavin. No.
Senator Durbin. So this is all voluntary.
Ms. Glavin. Well, for----
Mr. Myers. It is voluntary, but for interstate movement or
international movement, that is required.
Senator Durbin. So, again, eggs that are moving between
States or that are going to be sold overseas, then we test the
flocks; but if they are sold in the good old U.S. of A. within
a State, no standard. Is that correct?
Ms. Glavin. Yes.
Senator Durbin. How can that give the consumers any
confidence? Do you think it does?
Ms. Glavin. I think that, as we have said this morning, it
is necessary to look at a range of ways of addressing this
problem, which is a very serious problem and which is not
solved.
Senator Durbin. Well, it is clear that it is not solved,
and I think, frankly, that there are some things that we need
to do.
How many people at the Food and Drug Administration work on
egg safety?
Mr. Potter. We can get you a firmer number. I don't know
that. It is a little hard to calculate because there--because
of the way we operate, it is not 100 percent of very many
people's time, but it is a portion----
Senator Durbin. How many people devote part of their day to
the issue of egg safety in America at the Food and Drug
Administration?
Mr. Potter. I will have to get back to you with that
because it involves our field staff, and I just don't know what
those numbers are.
Senator Durbin. What did the General Accounting Office find
when it looked into how many people at the various agencies--
U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug
Administration--were involved?
Mr. Dyckman. Well, we know that there are about 102
inspectors at FSIS.
Senator Durbin. The U.S. Department of Agriculture?
Mr. Dyckman. The U.S. Department of Agriculture. When I
asked our staff how many people at FDA, I believe they could
remember one person that has an egg responsibility on a full-
time basis.
Mr. Secrist. Yes.
Mr. Dyckman. There were other people involved, but that is
all we could identify.
Senator Durbin. And this agency, the Food and Drug
Administration, which you found one person to be working on a
full-time basis, has a responsibility for so-called shell eggs,
those eggs that have not been broken. What is the volume of
shell eggs in the United States each year?
Mr. Dyckman. It is 70 percent of 67 billion.
Senator Durbin. So it is in the 40 billion range?
Mr. Dyckman. It is up there.
Senator Durbin. I think in our conversation you also
indicated that most of the FDA response you found to be after
the fact. If there had been evidence of some foodborne illness,
there was an attempt by the FDA to trace its source?
Mr. Dyckman. Right. Their primary responsibility seems to
be a trace-back responsibility, not a preventative type
responsibility.
Senator Durbin. That is a point which I think is very
important here, and, Dr. Potter, I would like to give you a
chance to respond to that as well. But every indication I
have--first, let me say this: The Food and Drug Administration
is one of my favorites. It is one of the most important
agencies in the Federal Government. Dollar for dollar, we get
more out of the FDA than virtually any agency, $1 billion a
year we spend there, and we rely on them every time we turn
around, for medical devices, pharmaceuticals, and a wide range
of things. Such an important agency that we should pay more
attention to it and devote more resources.
Having said all that, after I read this GAO report, I have
to conclude that the FDA view of its responsibility on egg
safety issues is almost non-existent. It comes in after the
fact, after someone is sick, to try to figure out what
happened. The incidence of inspection by the FDA once every 10
years suggests that this is an example that cries out for you
to give it up, get out of the egg business. Let's give this to
the FSIS and tell them we want it to be based on good public
health science and try to put it under one roof. I just don't
think the FDA has devoted the resources or attention to this
issue that it should, and please respond.
Mr. Potter. Thank you for your kind remarks about FDA.
Regarding your criticisms, the first thing I would like to
respond to is the one person working on eggs. Obviously, we
have, as I said in my response, some portion of the work day of
a large number of people who deal with eggs. We don't have the
inspection force that USDA agencies have, and as the Chairman
pointed out, very often we depend on collaborative arrangements
with our partners in State agencies to do much of our
inspection and field work.
We trace back eggs from outbreaks to laying houses for a
number of reasons. One, obviously, is a reaction to the
outbreak to remove dangerous eggs from the marketplace, but
more importantly, perhaps, is on a prospective basis, those
investigations, 112 laying houses, 6.7 million hens during the
last couple of years, teach us about those critical factors
that introduce and maintain Salmonella in those laying houses
so that we can come up with the performance standards for
critical control points and establish proactive prevention
programs.
Senator Durbin. I will ask one last question and turn it
back over to the Chairman. We have not mentioned pasteurization
of eggs, which I had to have people explain to me. I thought if
you have to heat an egg, doesn't it cook the egg, and it is my
understanding that there is a process that can pasteurize an
egg and, therefore, reduce if not eliminate the possibility of
SE contamination even for shell eggs. Is that correct, Doctor?
Mr. Potter. That is correct.
Senator Durbin. And let me ask you this: Has the Food and
Drug Administration developed any performance standards for
shell egg pasteurization to suggest this is the answer to
protect American consumers and give them peace of mind?
Mr. Potter. The Food and Drug Administration as early as
1990 recommended the use of pasteurized egg products, the
broken-egg pasteurized products, in nursing homes and hospitals
and for egg dishes that would be made from pooled eggs. So we
are very strong proponents of pasteurizing technologies, and we
are in our approach to food safety attempting to make our
guidance and regulations technology driving so that we
encourage new technologies that will produce things like in-
shell pasteurization.
One of the comments we got back early in this SE problem
from nursing home food service managers was that people in
nursing homes really look forward to their sunny-side up egg
and we were taking that away from them by requiring them to use
pasteurized egg products. And we think that it is a tremendous
advance to be able to pasteurize eggs in the shell so that we
are not taking that one sunny spot out of the day of people in
nursing homes.
Senator Durbin. Let me try again. I understand what you
have said. I understand that pasteurizing the processed eggs
and broken eggs is a good consumer safety move. But your
responsibility at the FDA is for shell eggs, too, and now we
have the technology to pasteurize shell eggs. The question I
asked you was: Have you developed at the FDA a performance
standard for shell egg pasteurization? The same question.
Mr. Potter. OK.
Senator Durbin. Yes or no?
Mr. Potter. Let me ask Dr. Troxell to give you a direct
answer.
Mr. Troxell. Thank you. We have advised AMS on the
appropriate performance standard for in-shell pasteurization, a
five-log reduction to use in their seal program they are
developing. Also, this technology, while it is very promising,
is still being pilot-tested, and the feasibility on
implementing this technology on a national basis is still a
question that we are very interested in pursuing.
Senator Durbin. How many years have you been field testing?
Mr. Troxell. We have not been field testing this
technology. Several companies have been field testing the
technology. Some of the systems have been rather crude in form.
Others are now developing specific engineered systems to run
this kind of in-shell pasteurization.
As you pointed out, it is very easy to cook the egg, so one
has to be very careful on the appropriate temperature.
Senator Durbin. I am going to leave this area----
Senator Voinovich. For the record, would you please give me
your name and the title you have?
Mr. Troxell. I am Dr. Terry Troxell, the Director of the
Office of Plant and Dairy Foods and Beverages at the FDA.
Senator Voinovich. Senator Durbin, we better----
Senator Durbin. I am going to conclude. The last thing I
will tell you is that in 1994, 5 years ago, the FDA set a
standard for pasteurization of shell eggs, having learned that
a commercial-scale pasteurization technology had been developed
which inexpensively processed eggs without noticeably altering
aesthetics or functionality.
This is something consumers would like to know about, and
they would like to have the protection of pasteurization. I
don't know what the FDA is waiting for here. I really think
that this is another example where, for some reason, much like
the temperature question, things have gone on for years and
years and years, and people have become sick, some have died,
waiting for the Federal Government to meet its responsibility.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Voinovich. Thank you.
I would like to finish up with one question for all of you.
We have seen a reduction in the number of SE cases, so
obviously something is being done.
For the record, where is most of the problem in terms of
this? Is it on the farm? Is it in the processing and shipping?
Or is it mostly generated in the institutions that use the
eggs? For example, how many of these cases come up when we use
eggs in a family? Is most of the problem in institutions?
Mr. Potter. About half of outbreaks are related to
institution--excuse me, to commercial food service, which would
include restaurants, schools, and hospitals.
Senator Voinovich. So half the problem is in the place
where the eggs end up?
Mr. Potter. Well, what the joint risk assessment showed us
is that there are critical factors at each step in the chain,
and there are opportunities for intervention at every step in
the chain. I think that most of our early attempts have been
focused on the laying house during egg production and at the
kitchen because those are the two areas that we felt we could
address first.
Senator Voinovich. And you think that those two areas are
where you have made the most inroads rather than the people
that are at the institutions?
Mr. Potter. Well, again, institutional food service, the
kitchens there have been a major focus. The agency has
collaborated on training videos for nursing home food service
directors and medical directors who are getting ready to go out
to nursing directors and food service directors with additional
advisories for about 12,000 nursing homes, 80,000 day-care
centers, 60,000 elementary schools, to get this information in
the hands of not only those institutions, but in the hands of
parents of young children, too, to hit at both ends of the age
spectrum.
Senator Voinovich. Thank you. We will now move on to our
next panel.
Senator Voinovich. I would like to ask the second panel to
come forward. It is composed of experts on the issue of egg
safety and representatives of the egg industry.
Michael Jacobson, a Ph.D., is the Executive Director of the
Center for Science in the Public Interest.
Ms. Jill Snowdon, Ph.D., is the Director of Food Safety
Programs at the Egg Nutrition Center.
Keith Mussman, co-owner of Mussman's Back Acres, is from
Illinois, and is appearing on behalf of the United Egg
Producers.
And Harold ``Butch'' DeVries, Executive Vice President and
General Manager of Mallquist Butter and Egg Company, is also
from Illinois.
We would like to thank all of the witnesses for coming this
morning.
I again want to reiterate that your statements will be
entered into the record. We would appreciate your limiting your
testimony to no more than 5 minutes, and because we are running
out of time, I am going to be pretty fastidious about sticking
to that 5-minute rule.
Senator Durbin, would you like an opportunity to introduce
the witnesses from your State?
Senator Durbin. Just very briefly, I am happy to have two
witnesses with Illinois connections.
Harold DeVries of Rockford, Illinois, married with two
children and three grandchildren. His business started in 1930,
and he came to work at Mallquist in his senior year in high
school in 1955, 44 years ago. The business has nearly half a
million chickens, produces and processes 11,000 cases of eggs a
week for the Chicagoland area.
Keith Mussman, from Back Acres, Inc., a family farm
corporation with 1,200 grain farm and 240,000 laying hens. They
produce, process, and distribute eggs in Illinois and Indiana.
He was born and raised in Grant Park, which is in northeast
Kankakee County, and lives there with his wife Barbara and
three kids.
Thanks for being here. Thank you all.
Mr. Jacobson. I have to confess I am also from your great
State of Illinois.
Senator Durbin. We are everywhere.
Senator Voinovich. Now I know why he wanted to have this
hearing. [Laughter.]
We have heard from the Federal agencies. This is
interesting. Now we are going to be hearing from the people
that are actually producing the eggs and also the public
interests who are interested in protecting the citizens. We
really appreciate your being here.
We are going to start off with Dr. Jacobson, who is the
Executive Director of the Center for Science in the Public
Interest. Dr. Jacobson, we would like to hear from you.
TESTIMONY OF MICHAEL F. JACOBSON, PH.D.,\1\ EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,
CENTER FOR SCIENCE IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST
Mr. Jacobson. Thank you very much, Senator.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Jacobson with an attachment
entitled ``Scrambled Eggs,'' appears in the Appendix on page 80.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
CSPI is a non-profit consumer-advocacy organization that
focuses on nutrition, food safety, and alcohol issues, and is
supported by our 1 million members, including thousands in both
Illinois and Ohio. Accompanying me today is Caroline Smith
DeWaal, our Director of Food Safety, sitting behind me.
Most consumers think that government watchdogs are ensuring
that their food is safe. But any watchdogs that there were,
were asleep while eggs contaminated with Salmonella grew into a
national public health epidemic. Twenty or so years ago, a
strain of Salmonella called enteritidis developed the ability
to infect a chicken's ovaries and enter an egg before it is
laid. The advent of that enterprising strain of bacterium means
that it is no longer safe to eat runny eggs, taste cookie
dough, or enjoy raw eggs in desserts and salads.
Today, infected chickens lay an estimated 2.3 million
contaminated eggs each year, any one of which could cause an
illness or an outbreak of food poisoning. Since 1990, eggs have
been directly linked to at least 123 separate outbreaks of food
poisoning, mostly from SE. CDC has reported that since 1985
there have been nearly 800 SE outbreaks largely associated with
eggs and egg dishes.
A recent risk assessment on eggs conducted by USDA said
that SE-contaminated eggs have caused an average of 660,000
illnesses and 330 deaths annually. While the CDC data from a
few areas around the country suggest that the number of
illnesses has declined, many more illnesses could be prevented
with mandatory national programs.
Some people say that the consumer should be the only
critical control point. We say that consumers should be able to
expect that eggs are safe.
In 1986, CDC first identified SE in eggs as a public health
problem when there was a food poisoning outbreak that sickened
more than 3,000 people. Since then, unfortunately, no
government agency has mounted an intelligent, comprehensive
counter-attack on SE. There is no government-mandated SE
testing program for eggs or laying flocks, no mandatory
expiration date for shell eggs, no ban on repacking and re-
dating old eggs, no mandatory refrigeration of eggs throughout
the distribution chain, and no label on egg cartons to alert
consumers. The government has simply failed to take the
necessary steps. Instead, the production of safe eggs has been
stymied by overlapping responsibilities between FDA and USDA,
irrational assignment of inspectors, and two agencies
developing duplicative and competing SE control programs.
Eggs provide one of the best illustrations of the need for
a centralized Federal framework for food safety as proposed by
Senator Durbin last week in the Safe Food Act.
In 1997, in an effort to jump-start government efforts,
CSPI petitioned the FDA to develop a mandatory on-farm control
program for eggs modeled after an effective State program. CSPI
also petitioned FDA to require a label on egg cartons alerting
consumers to the risks and advising them to cook eggs
thoroughly. There has been little visible action since CSPI
petitioned the FDA, but we hope that this Federal Register
announcement--that we haven't seen yet--will pave the way for
action in the foreseeable future.
The actions that the agency has mentioned today are
important but not sufficient. In a critical omission, FDA and
USDA have failed to utilize the single most effective public
health measure, and that is on-farm SE monitoring and control.
Though temperature controls and labeling help prevent illnesses
from contaminated eggs, on-farm programs like HACCP would help
prevent eggs from being contaminated in the first place.
Under an on-farm program, manure and eggs would be tested
for SE, and eggs from flocks that test positive would be
diverted to pasteurization plants where they would be rendered
harmless.
Programs like that appear to be working in some States. We
need such programs mandated as soon as possible throughout the
country.
Thank you very much for your attention to this important
public health problem.
Senator Voinovich. Thank you very much, Dr. Jacobson.
We will now call on Jill Snowdon, Director of Food Safety
Programs, Egg Nutrition Center.
TESTIMONY OF JILL A. SNOWDON, PH.D.,\1\ DIRECTOR OF FOOD SAFETY
PROGRAMS, EGG NUTRITION CENTER
Ms. Snowdon. Thank you very much. I serve as the Director
of Food Safety Programs at the Egg Nutrition Center, which is a
scientific and technical resource on nutrition and food safety
of eggs and is a joint effort between the American Egg Board
and the United Egg Producers.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Snowdon with attachments appears
in the Appendix on page 122.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The pursuit of egg safety should be considered a success
story. The disease incidence of salmonellosis caused by
Salmonella enteritidis, which we know as SE, has been on the
decline in the United States. Multiple lines of evidence--taken
from data collected over the last 3 to 8 years, from both
national and regional levels, including both sporadic cases and
outbreaks--show the same downward trend.
SE outbreaks from both egg and non-egg sources have
decreased from a high of 82 outbreaks in 1990 to 45 in 1998.
Both the number of outbreaks and the number of people ill in
the outbreak have decreased.
The incidence of this disease is also recorded in CDC's
Salmonella surveillance system and records a decline in
salmonellosis caused by SE on a regional basis. This is also
reflected in data from States such as California and
Pennsylvania. They, on their recording basis, are also showing
a decline.
But perhaps the most compelling line of evidence for the
decline is from CDC's FoodNet program which reports a 44
percent decline in salmonellosis caused by SE over the last 3
years. FoodNet data indicate 1.4 million cases of salmonellosis
in the United States in 1997. Fifteen percent of the reported
cases were caused by SE. One could estimate on these numbers
than that there were 210,000 cases of salmonellosis caused by
SE in the United States in 1997.
These cases can result from a number of food and non-food
sources, including eggs. There are a few other indicators of
this decline, and they are included in my written testimony.
It should be pointed out that illness from SE is only a
fraction of all cases of salmonellosis and that eggs account
for only a portion of all of those reported cases.
There are a number of characteristics which make eggs
unique, and the unique qualities of eggs should be--the
biological and physical unique qualities of eggs need to be
taken into consideration if we are developing effective
intervention strategies. SE is associated with the infection of
an internal organ. This is in contrast to all other foodborne
microorganisms which are typically associated with feces and
dust. This may dictate the type of control mechanisms that then
become most effective.
The egg, intended to be new life, has multiple properties
that deter or destroy microorganisms. These properties are
listed in the written testimony. I am going to concentrate on
just one--that of the yolk membrane. If the yolk membrane is
intact, SE will not grow because of an absence of nutrients. So
the integrity of the yolk membrane is determined by time and
temperature.
Data from the United Kingdom indicate that SE will not grow
in eggs for about 28 days if they have been stored at 60
degrees Fahrenheit or less.
However, the security of the intact egg vanishes once that
egg is broken and its contents are mixed together. Once the
natural antimicrobial properties are destroyed, the liquid egg
has to be pasteurized, cooked thoroughly, or held chilled to
ensure that microorganisms do not grow. Proper care of pooled
eggs may be the most critical control point in the spectrum of
egg safety.
Senator Durbin, if I can make a small but important
addition to your observation about the outbreak in Virginia,
when I spoke with the investigator in charge of that outbreak
investigation, he indicated that they closed the restaurant
down as soon as they walked in because the food preparation
practices were so abysmal. In that conversation with him, he
indicated that they were using bare hands to handle sausage and
bacon, and then those same bare hands were dipping toast into
the egg batter mix. So the production of safe food needs to be
accompanied by the safe preparation of food.
The industry supports food service education. As an
example, I would like to include this book, which is the
American Egg Board's food service recommendations for eggs, as
part of the record, please.\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ ``The Incredible Edible Egg, A Natural For Any Foodservice
Operation,'' appears in the Appendix on page 151.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
To move food safety from production to preparation is part
of the goal of protecting the food supply.
The egg industry became aware of this problem, identified
ways to combat it, and implemented actions. Now disease rates
are dropping, and the egg industry is continuing to look for
additional techniques to combat SE.
I have appended a list of industry activities to the
testimony and will only mention participation and quality
assurance programs in my verbal testimony.
Participation in industry-generated quality assurance
programs continues to increase. All quality assurance programs
in the egg industry have been based on the principles of Hazard
Analysis Critical Control Points, which is the best technique
to protect the food supply. In a survey of large producers in
the United States, 93 percent were producing eggs under the
guidelines of a quality assurance program. In a survey of the
top six egg-producing States, it was estimated that between 85
to 95 percent of the eggs in those States were produced under a
quality assurance program. Microbiological analysis of manure
samples from laying houses detects Salmonella enteritidis about
3 percent of the time or less, further evidence that the
presence of SE in laying houses is the exception, not the norm.
In addition to diverting eggs as part of quality assurance
programs, the organism is controlled by a variety of means and
mechanisms dictated by a HACCP program.
In summary, I would say that the pursuit of egg safety
should be considered a success story. The public health
community discovered the problem and placed much of the
responsibility upon egg producers. After years of effort--
including extensive scientific research, debate, controversy,
education, and changes in production and food preparation
practices--the trend in disease incidence is downward.
The egg industry has contributed substantively to this
success. The recent decline in both outbreaks and sporadic
cases has occurred in geographic areas where control measures
have been most intense.
But even though the fruit of man labors are beginning to
ripen, there is still more work that needs to be done. The egg
industry remains committed to continuing to take the steps that
continue to make the rates drop.
Thank you for inviting us to be part of this hearing and to
be part of the process to ensure a safe food supply. Eggs are a
nourishing, appealing, economical food that can continue to be
enjoyed with assurance.
Senator Voinovich. Thank you, Dr. Snowdon.
Our next witness is Keith Mussman, co-owner, Mussman's Back
Acres, representing the United Egg Producers.
TESTIMONY OF KEITH MUSSMAN,\1\ CO-OWNER, MUSSMAN'S BACK ACRES,
ON BEHALF OF THE UNITED EGG PRODUCERS
Mr. Mussman. Mr. Chairman, and Senator Durbin, thank you
for this opportunity to be here today. I believe it is an
opportunity of a lifetime. And if I may add an aside, Senator
Durbin, as a resident of Illinois, I am proud to be one of your
constituents.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Mussman appears in the Appendix
on page 169.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Senator Durbin. Thank you.
Mr. Mussman. Good morning. My name is Keith Mussman, and I
am a farmer producing eggs in Illinois. I have been in this
business all of my life, having followed in the footsteps of my
father who produced eggs and sold them in the Chicago area
almost 50 years ago. I am testifying today on behalf of my
industry organization, United Egg Producers, a national
cooperative representing the interests of nearly 80 percent of
all egg production nationwide.
The egg industry considers food safety of paramount
importance and is committed to enhancing the safety of shell
eggs and egg products as is evidenced by the number of
voluntary programs it has undertaken. For example, the egg
industry through UEP has developed a national five-star quality
assurance program. UEP has sponsored HACCP training workshops,
published egg handling and preparation guidelines for food
service employees and consumers, and supported FDA in
determining that eggs, like other protein-rich foods, should be
classified ``potentially hazardous.''
Data were collected in a recent survey from 41 egg
producers with 1 million or more laying hens and representing a
total 125 million layers, which is approximately 50 percent of
the Nation's total. Of those responding, 93 percent reported to
be participating in one of the industry's egg quality assurance
programs.
The egg industry has initiated and implemented voluntary
programs in response to every concern raised about food safety,
while providing a wholesome food at a price comparable to or
now even less than it was at the time my father was marketing
eggs in Chicago 50 years ago.
In 1998, FoodNet reported a 44 percent decline in
Salmonellosis attributed to SE during the past 3 years.
Likewise, the record on outbreaks--where two or more people
became ill--shows a decline in illness that began in 1990.
The Egg Products Inspection Act of 1970 provides uniform
standards of quality, grade, condition, weight, and labeling
for shell eggs in interstate commerce.
Eggs which fail to meet grading standards are either
diverted to the breaking market for pasteurization or deemed
inedible for humans and processed for other uses such as pet
foods.
Shell eggs are cleaned in wash water of approximately 110
degrees Fahrenheit, or 20 degrees higher than the egg
temperature. A sanitizing solution is used in the washing
process to enhance cleaning.
Soon after processing, eggs are packaged and stored at 45
degrees Fahrenheit.
Most of the SE outbreaks associated with food have been a
result of improper food handling and preparation. Holding raw
egg batters at room temperature for extended times, using
containers that go unwashed between uses, inadequate cooking,
and inadequate cooling of leftovers have all contributed to
foodborne outbreaks.
It is a fact that a zero-risk or a sterile food supply is
impossible.
It is important that accurate information is communicated
about risk and that sound food service educational information
is provided to consumers, and particularly to the food service
sector, so that everyone is well educated in safe food handling
and understands their responsibilities for ensuring food
safety.
Just as there is no single control method that will
eliminate all pathogens and toxins from the food chain, there
is no single method for providing a 100 percent guarantee that
foods will be free of pathogens.
For the most part, the different agencies the producers and
processors must deal with are doing a difficult job well. We as
producers do not always agree with the actions taken by these
agencies, of course, and when we disagree with them, we have
not been shy about saying so.
We have not had the GAO report long enough to study it in
great detail. However, we are not convinced that the structure
of our food safety agencies is the problem. They have different
roles and different areas of expertise. To us, the real issue
is what our public policy should be, not who implements them.
Under the present system, we have already witnessed a
significant decline in the number of cases of Salmonellosis
since 1996. Coordination among agencies currently provides
checks and balances.
Congress, of course, should insist that this coordination
be cooperative rather than competitive. Everyone's goal must be
protecting food, not turf.
I want to finish up with a few brief comments about the GAO
report. I just got it yesterday, so I haven't had time to study
it thoroughly. But I have looked at the recommendations GAO
makes to the agencies.
First, GAO recommends that FDA develop a model HACCP-based
program for egg operations that could be adopted by the States.
Our industry is implementing HACCP-type programs and is
receptive to this recommendation. However, we would want to
review any FDA proposals.
Second, GAO recommends HACCP for egg-breaking plants.
Generally, our processor members are supportive of HACCP
regulation, and many have HACCP plans in place already. FSIS
has said it intends to propose exactly this kind of system.
Third, GAO recommends study of the costs and benefits of
implementing rapid cooling techniques in egg processing and
packing operations. We agree that research is a good idea, and,
in fact, quite a bit has been done. However, commercial
applications are still a ways off. The increased cost would be
a concern, and as I understand it, the consumer would not
benefit from a health standpoint.
I do wish GAO had given the agencies a little more credit
for working together in recent years, and I wish the positive
steps our industry has taken had been highlighted more. We have
not been followers. We have been leaders. I am proud of my
business and of my industry for promoting a safe food supply.
Thank you.
Senator Voinovich. Thank you, Mr. Mussman.
Our next witness is Harold ``Butch'' DeVries, Executive
Vice President and General Manager of Mallquist Butter and Egg
Company. Mr. DeVries.
TESTIMONY OF HAROLD ``BUTCH'' DEVRIES, JR.,\1\ VICE PRESIDENT
AND GENERAL MANAGER, MALLQUIST BUTTER AND EGG COMPANY
Mr. DeVries. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator Durbin. Good
morning. My name is Harold DeVries, and I am Vice President and
principal stockholder at Mallquist Butter and Egg Company in
Rockford. My company is a small agricultural business packaging
about 4 million eggs per week from its one-half million laying
chickens. We also distribute liquid and frozen eggs. I am here
today at the request of Senator Durbin's office.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. DeVries appears in the Appendix
on page 180.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Food safety is very important to me personally, to my
company, and to my industry. The reputation of my company is
dependent upon quality, and we operate quality assurance
programs to ensure a safe food supply. Mallquist Butter and Egg
Company has instituted procedures to identify those critical
control points from the farm through distribution for
monitoring quality assurance, including cleaning and
disinfecting the poultry house, rodent and pest control, proper
egg washing, biosecurity, and refrigeration.
Today I want to share some information about food safety
action in the State of Illinois, discuss a task force that was
established by the Department of Agriculture and Public Health
to analyze food safety issues, and to recommend actions to
resolve public concerns. As a producer, I had the honor of
serving on that task force.
During 1998, local health departments in Illinois
investigated almost 1,200 complaints about food and illness.
Microorganisms that caused the foodborne outbreaks could only
be determined in one-third of the incidents; two-thirds of the
outbreaks occurred because of unknown causes.
While the causes and effects of foodborne diseases are
better understood today, emerging risks need to be monitored.
For example, consumers are changing; increasing numbers of
elderly and others are at higher risk of severe illness;
consumers spend less time cooking than ever before and may have
received less instruction on food handling at home or school.
Where the rubber meets the road is at the local level. More
than 90 Illinois local health departments and 135
municipalities provide food safety functions at the community
level through inspections of restaurants, schools, caterers,
and food stores for adherence to food safety requirements. They
promote safe food-handling behaviors through educational
efforts with school children, the general public, and the
retail food industry.
The HACCP system is widely accepted by the scientific
community as the best known approach to enhancing the safety of
foods. If HACCP systems are fully implemented, the
effectiveness of the food safety system can be enhanced
significantly, but absolute safety of potentially hazardous
foods cannot be assured.
The first recommendation from the task force is to broaden
coordination and cooperation between the Illinois agencies with
the respective Federal and local counterparts so that food
safety programs are consistent and uniform.
The second recommendation is for the development of a
mechanism to ensure that regulated industries, government
agencies, and the general public have a formal venue to advise
the Departments of Agriculture and Public Health on issues of
mutual concern relative to the food supply.
The task force also recognizes the value of the Federal
Government's FoodNet. In the last 3 years, as reported by
FoodNet, the incidence of Salmonellosis associated with SE has
decreased 44 percent. This is great news for the egg industry
and the public. It suggests that efforts by the industry are
having an effect.
The egg industry has demonstrated responsiveness and
cooperation with Federal, State, and local agencies in
addressing the safety of shell eggs and egg products. A large
number of agencies are involved in food safety. However, the
expertise from these agencies addresses the issue of food
safety from different and complementary perspectives. The egg
industry has developed numerous programs and activities
designed to enhance food safety and to educate the channel from
farm to table in the proper production, transportation,
processing, handling, and preparation of its products.
Education and training can be one of the least costly yet
most effective means to protect consumers from foodborne
illness. Increasing individual awareness of food safety matters
all through the food chain and motivating customers to adopt
simple, yet important sanitation and food-handling behaviors is
effective in improving food safety. Thank you.
Senator Voinovich. Thank you, Mr. DeVries.
I am pleased to hear that the industry is doing what it can
to improve food safety, and I think it is logical that you
would do that. You are in the business and you want people to
buy your product, and if everyone thinks it is not safe, they
are not going to buy eggs. So I am sure that you are trying to
do your very best in your own operation to make sure it is as
clean as possible because if it is not, it affects your
business.
I also would like to compliment the State of Illinois for
looking at the local contribution to improve the situation. We
were talking earlier when you were gone, Senator Durbin, that
the States do have a role, the Federal people said that there
is a definite role for States, and that they couldn't handle it
without State involvement. I think that more activity in the
area of best practices should be shared throughout the country
to guarantee that things are going well on the farm and also
that better food safety and preparation is being practiced.
From your perspective, is the real problem in the food
handling and preparation rather than on the farm? And we have
talked about a reduction of some 40 percent. Where did the
reduction take place, as a result of what? Does anyone want to
comment on that?
Mr. Mussman. I will jump in on that one. I think the
reduction has come because of a better awareness both on the
farm and in food handling on how to better handle eggs to make
them safer. One statistic that has leapt out at me continually
is science has pretty much stated that perhaps one out of
20,000 eggs is contaminated with SE. If you extrapolate that
for the number of eggs a person eats, 240 or 250 eggs a year,
your chances of being exposed to a Salmonella-infected egg
would be once in 84 years.
Now, I realize if your wife is the one that got it, that is
very important to you. But just keeping those statistics in
mind, the risk is really minute.
In answer to your original question, because those numbers
are so minute, it is believed that most of the problems are at
the food-handling end of the situation, as Dr. Snowdon
mentioned on that other outbreak. Just plain mishandling of
food.
Ms. Snowdon. The industry recognizes it has a
responsibility to produce the best and safest product it can,
and it has been taking the kinds of steps to do that. So I
think that certainly is one of the reasons that we have seen
the decline, the concerted effort at the production level to
ensure that the organism doesn't move into the hens to begin
with, if it moves into the hen that it doesn't make it into the
egg, if it makes it into the egg that it doesn't make it into
the marketplace. So that is definitely a part of it, and
industry is aware of that responsibility and fulfills that
responsibility.
I think the contrast that Mr. Mussman just pointed out is
one that has also struck me from the viewpoint, and my point
that once that shell is broken, that you have a phenomenal
opportunity for growth and spread both. And so that no matter
how clean the product an industry produces, it has got to be
accompanied by appropriate food-handling practices.
I think that we are seeing an increase in that, the
FightBac campaign that we have at the national level, other
national level educational programs the industry has put
together in terms of appropriate food-handling practices. So I
think that we are starting to work the entire spectrum, and I
think that the benefits that now we are getting in the last
couple of years are a result of working that entire spectrum.
Senator Voinovich. Dr. Jacobson.
Mr. Jacobson. I think the egg industry does deserve praise
for the actions that it has been taking. It is great to hear of
these individual reports from particular operations. But it has
been a long time coming. And as Senator Durbin emphasized,
government regulation has been a long time coming. Taking 8
years to get out a rule on temperature is too long.
Despite the regulations, the voluntary industry practices,
I don't see handling labels on eggs warning somebody of a
problem, saying cook it thoroughly. I haven't heard the egg
industry voluntarily banning the practice of repacking. And I
don't think the egg industry can do it because it is a diverse
industry, not every company is part of the United Egg
Producers. It is simply voluntary.
The GAO report says the States have a patchwork of
programs, presumably some better than others. But if the
industry is doing as good a job as it is presenting, I don't
see why it wouldn't mind having a mandatory Federal floor, a
mandatory HACCP program dictated with parameters set by the FDA
and USDA, so that would be the floor, and if some companies
want to do better, fine. But at least have that mandatory floor
so we are not waiting for voluntary industry action. And as we
see in so many areas, voluntary action can be temporary action.
It can be crisis-driven. We see it today, but if the pressure
is off, things can go back to the old ways.
That is why we would like to see some mandatory rules for
mandatory Federal rules so that flocks are inspected for SE,
and if a contaminated flock is discovered, eggs would be
diverted to that pasteurization stream--not thrown out.
I don't see why the egg industry would object to having a
sensible program. This current system, as described by the GAO,
is crazy. It goes from, at the upper left of the chart, USDA to
FDA, then down to USDA, then back to FDA, then to either one of
them, depending where it is. That is a crazy system. It needs
to be rationalized. And it is especially dramatic when you have
those 102 USDA inspectors inspecting pasteurized eggs that are
the safest ones you can get. And FDA every 10 years inspecting
fresh shell eggs. That doesn't make sense. And, of course, that
is driven partly by the budgetary process where FDA money is
FDA's, and USDA money is USDA's, and they can't mix. If you had
a single food safety agency, as Senator Durbin and several
other Senators and the GAO have recommended, I think we could
have a more sensible and possibly even a more economical
approach, and certainly we could get a timelier response to
food safety problems.
Senator Voinovich. Thank you. I pointed out earlier that
each of the Federal agencies, under the Results Act, are
supposed to be putting together performance standards and goals
for their respective agencies. One of them requires
coordination, and I would be interested to find out from the
Department of Agriculture and from Health and Human Services
just how much they have sat down with each other to talk about
how they coordinate their activities and to identify holes that
are there and how to respond to them, as you just pointed out
in your testimony.
Mr. Jacobson. I think for the country, though, it doesn't
make sense to be stuck with a jerry-rigged system, not just for
eggs but food safety in general, where the Commerce Department
does fish, and the Treasury Department cares about alcoholic-
beverage safety. It doesn't know anything about health. It
doesn't make sense, and there shouldn't have to be this
complicated web of probably temporary jerry-rigged
collaborative efforts when you could have one sensible and
really seamless system for helping ensure the public safety.
Senator Voinovich. Would anyone like to comment on that?
Mr. DeVries. I would just like to make a comment and clear
up a few things that you talked about earlier about the age of
eggs before they were packaged and dating and those types of
things. We are an off-line operation, so the eggs don't go into
the egg washer and grader immediately, but within 2 days they
are always packaged. And from that point on, there is a 30-day
expiration date put on the eggs. In the State of Illinois, we
have been doing that now for, I think, over 25 years.
You talked about refrigeration. We have been refrigerating
eggs in Illinois since I became employed there at 60 degrees,
and when this was brought up in 1991 about the 45-degree
temperature, we then instituted that also, and we have been
carrying that out.
So, from our standpoint, the State of Illinois has a great
egg inspection program that followed through with the
Department of Agriculture and the Health Department.
Senator Voinovich. Mr. Mussman.
Mr. Mussman. I concur.
Senator Voinovich. Do any of you think that we need to have
improved regulation on the Federal level in terms of your
industry? You start smiling at that question. But have you, as
an organization, made recommendations to any of the Federal
agencies involved on how they could improve their operations?
Mr. Mussman. I think one of our concerns has been the
cooperation between the agencies, but we sincerely feel that
that is a management problem. It is not a problem having it in
the different organizations. It is just there are organizations
themselves sorting out who is going to be in control.
United Egg Producers has taken a position for 21-day
expiration dates. Even though there is no law prohibiting
repacking of eggs, UEP's position for years has been to not do
it. Obviously, there are some renegades out there that will. I
think not just the egg industry, but other industries are the
same way. You have got some guys that don't play by the rules.
We feel sincerely that we have been leaders in the food
safety issue, and we have had tremendous cooperation with FDA,
USDA, and FSIS on the issue. Speaking from--I am going to take
off my egg producer hat and put on my taxpayer hat right now. I
told my father I was coming out here and explained the reason,
and he said, ``They are just going to add another layer of
bureaucracy.'' From the grass-roots issue, that is a tremendous
concern. Government never gets smaller. You can take all these
things away from the other departments and create--I don't care
what you call it. It is going to add costs to the government,
and we sincerely believe that it is not going to make food
safer.
Senator Voinovich. Well, I appreciate your comments. I know
that has been one of the things that you hear from folks about
a new agency, that it becomes kind of a large burgeoning agency
that makes it more difficult for people to get answers. But you
don't have any complaints that you have FDA, then you have
USDA, and then you have the State agencies all visiting your
places? No complaints from your people about the multiplicity
of agencies that are regulating your operations? This makes
sense?
Mr. DeVries. From my standpoint, we are inspected on a
quarterly basis by USDA. Of course, our State of Illinois
Department of Agriculture is in there quite often. They are
always in there on an unannounced basis all the time. The local
health department shows up also. We have no problems with any
of those things. We work with them. We are happy to work with
all of them.
One of the other issues that was brought up is we do have
on our egg cartons ``keep refrigerated.'' We do have safe
cooking and handling labels inside the egg cartons also. And we
do no repacking of eggs, never have done, never will do. There
is no reason for that. Those eggs just belong to the breakers
for further processing.
So from our standpoint, we really have no problems.
Senator Voinovich. Thank you very much. I am out of time,
and I will turn it over to Senator Durbin.
Senator Durbin. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. DeVries, let me follow up on that because I think you
are giving us valuable testimony about the real world out
there. You said that you just don't repackage eggs. That has
been a standard at your business for a long time, has it been?
Mr. DeVries. That is correct.
Senator Durbin. And, Mr. Mussman, is it the same standard
at yours?
Mr. Mussman. Same standard. Everything goes either in
restricted eggs and if it is broken, it goes in a barrel. If it
is cracked, it goes to restricted for further processing.
Senator Durbin. How did you happen to adopt that standard?
Is that something that just made common sense to you, or did
you have a bad experience?
Mr. Mussman. In our particular instance--I heard him
talking before--we are not a USDA-inspected plant. We fall in
that 70 percent. We were a small business, but it has grown
over the years. We were never required to so we haven't. But
there is one thing that goes on our label that takes precedence
over any USDA label, and that is Mussman's Back Acres. So it
was common sense. We can't afford to put a product out there
that may come back and bite us.
I know there are a lot of other egg producers in the same
boat. It is not worth the risk.
Senator Durbin. But let me just ask you this question: If
we had a problem in Illinois with eggs, wouldn't it really be
to your benefit if everyone is held to kind of a basic standard
so that the bad actors don't get off the hook? You are two
responsible egg producers and packagers. What I am driving at
is this: You take pride in your label. Both of you do. But if
we had an egg problem, people would perhaps stop buying your
product for a while, too, uncertain as to whether or not you
were the good guys or the bad guys.
When we establish a standard where consumers have some
confidence, doesn't that help all egg producers?
Mr. DeVries. I would say yes to that effect. Absolutely it
would help all egg producers. Just like when we had the scare
with the cholesterol things years ago, we saw our business go
down. Now we got rid of that, and our business--the number of
eggs eaten by consumers has gone up each year. We have seen
things come down even though we are eating more eggs. It would
be great to have everybody play by the same rules.
Senator Durbin. Well, Mr. Mussman, let me ask you a
question. Mr. DeVries talked about the fact that it is about 2
days between the laying of eggs and the packaging. Is that your
experience as well?
Mr. Mussman. Our operation happens to be in-line. We
process 7 days a week, and the eggs come directly from the
birds and they go right into the carton.
Senator Durbin. So that is hours?
Mr. Mussman. They are 5 hours old when they get to the
cartons.
Senator Durbin. And that, again, is a standard which you
have put into your business place, is it not? It is not
mandated by anyone, is it?
Mr. Mussman. That decision was based somewhat on economics
rather than just for a pure freshness situation. It just worked
out for us to do it that way.
Senator Durbin. But there is no regulation or law along
that line?
Mr. Mussman. No.
Senator Durbin. Now, our State of Illinois is one of the 17
States, incidentally, in the Nation which requires a labeling
on the egg cartons of an expiration date or a sell-by date, and
we have sell by 30 days. But you mentioned 21 days as being a
standard. Is that the UEP?
Mr. Mussman. That number has been bandied around, and UEP
has gone on record with a position that they would support 21
days if that was to come into effect.
Senator Durbin. And that basically--does it start from the
belief that the older the egg, the less likely it is going to
taste good and it might even be less safe as it gets older?
Mr. Mussman. That, and it doesn't appear as well on the
plate. There are a number of reasons. But safety is certainly
one of them.
Senator Durbin. So it goes back to my earlier point. If I
am traveling around the country and I am buying eggs in a
restaurant here, there, or any other place, if there is a
standard, a reasonable standard which your industry says helps
us all, all egg producers--it strikes me that that helps you
because you are playing by good rules, rules that you have
assumed for your own business to make sure that when you put
your name on a carton you feel proud. Is that not correct?
Mr. Mussman. That is totally correct, and we would dream
that everyone would play by the same rules. But what it still
ultimately comes down to is, if I produce an egg that is 5
hours old when I put it in the carton and I deliver it tomorrow
to the local restaurant, and they break it in a bucket and
leave it sit out at room temperature for 13 hours, then it
becomes a food-handling problem.
Senator Durbin. And that is a good point, and I want to go
back to Dr. Snowdon's point about the restaurant in Richmond,
Virginia. I have not identified the chain, but I am going to
now. It is IHOP. And let me tell you what the Vice President
for Operations for the Eastern United States, John Jordan, said
in the Richmond newspaper of June 12, 1999. He said he was
aware that the egg wash the restaurant used to prepare French
toast had received a positive reading for Salmonella bacteria.
He went on to say--in an effort to prevent further problems,
Jordan said the restaurant will now be using processed and
pasteurized eggs for its French toast batter rather than eggs
in the shell.
For the record, I do not disagree with the premise that
safe food handling is an important element in this. But in this
situation, for whatever reason, there was a contaminated egg
mixture which Mr. Jordan has acknowledged was part of the
problem and said that they were going to steps to deal with it.
Can we stay for a moment on this question of
pasteurization, which was this restaurant's chain response? Do
you pasteurize shell eggs in your operation, Mr. DeVries?
Mr. DeVries. No, we don't.
Senator Durbin. Mr. Mussman, do you?
Mr. Mussman. No.
Senator Durbin. How common is that in your experience in
the State of Illinois? How many egg producers actually
pasteurize shell eggs?
Mr. DeVries. I believe it may only be one or two people in
the whole country, and it has just been----
Senator Durbin. Just starting out?
Mr. Mussman. It is the new technology.
Senator Durbin. New technology.
Mr. DeVries. The thing about using the pasteurized eggs at
the restaurants, too, that is not going to stop an illness if
those aren't handled properly.
Senator Durbin. Proper handling is part of the deal.
Mr. DeVries. The whole thing.
Senator Durbin. Absolutely. Now, how about the management?
How about the testing of your breeding flock? Are they tested
for Salmonella? Has that happened, Mr. Mussman?
Mr. Mussman. We buy 18-week-old pullets, so we have nothing
to do with the breeding business. But we are assured that our
breeding flocks are tested from the chickens that we get.
Senator Durbin. OK. The same thing from Mr. DeVries?
Mr. DeVries. We grow our own birds, so we buy our birds a
day old. And we have an SE testing program all the way through.
Senator Durbin. You are the good guys here. I am really
glad you are here, and I am glad you are from Illinois. That
makes my job a little easier, Mr. Chairman, in regard to that.
I want to say to you, Mr. Mussman, if I thought that what
we are about here, what I am about here is adding another layer
of bureaucracy, I couldn't look you in the eye. What I am
trying to do is to eliminate a few layers of bureaucracy. As
you heard, this ball is being handed off from agency to agency,
and we really think if it is put under one roof that really the
buck is going to stop at some agency that really coordinates
the efforts here and makes the product a little safer and the
cost a little cheaper for taxpayers. And if it doesn't achieve
that, it is going nowhere in Washington, D.C., and I certainly
am not going to push for it. So you can tell your father and
friends that that is something we are going to try to work on.
Let me, if I can for a minute, talk about FoodNet, and, Dr.
Jacobson, as I understand FoodNet, it is a Center for Disease
Control survey of seven States, if I am not mistaken, where
they went and took samples to reach this conclusion about a 44
percent decline in SE.
Mr. Jacobson. Let me let Caroline Smith DeWaal take over
here.
Senator Durbin. OK.
Ms. DeWaal. The FoodNet data that concluded that there was
a 40 percent reduction was taken from just a few areas of the
country. It was about eight sites, if I believe correctly,
including a number of States. It represents about 7 percent of
the U.S. population.
And if I just might add, the----
Senator Durbin [presiding]. For the record, please state
your name.
Ms. DeWaal. It is Caroline Smith DeWaal, Director of Food
Safety for the Center for Science in the Public Interest. The
actual report that CDC issued where they mentioned the decrease
in Salmonella, they say that the reasons for the decline are
unclear. They do say that the implementation of these egg
quality assurance programs with--and this is critical--
microbial testing and egg diversion in some States may have
contributed to the decline. And then they also mentioned that
some of the improvements that are happening in the meat and
poultry industry also may have contributed to it because right
now there is an intensive effort in the poultry industry to
reduce Salmonella levels to meet the new HACCP standards for
poultry plants.
Senator Durbin. I have it that the CDC project, FoodNet,
tested in Connecticut, Minnesota, Oregon, selected counties in
California, Georgia, Maryland, and New York. Interestingly
enough, although there was a 44 percent decline in these
sampled States and sampled localities, they found some wide
variation. For example, the rate of evidence of Salmonella
infection was more than 7 times higher in Maryland than it was
in Georgia and New York, and they can't explain the differences
there. But that appears to be part of the uncertainty about
what we draw from this conclusion. It is certainly a lot better
than a 44 percent increase. We have got to acknowledge that. So
something is moving in the right direction, and I hope this
hearing and some of the things that we have talked about today
can bring us further along that course.
Let me conclude--the Chairman had to leave the hearing--by
thanking Mr. DeVries and Mr. Mussman for coming here, and as I
said, for whatever reason, your selection was the right one by
the United Egg Producers because, as we listened to the
standards which you have voluntarily imposed on yourself
because of your pride in the product that you are selling, I am
sure it gives consumers a good feeling that there are some good
players out there, and probably the majority of egg producers
are good players. I just want to get back to my original point
here, and that is that we are embarking on a new era where food
safety is an extraordinary issue for a lot of people. I
literally had breakfast--I can't tell you the man's name or his
company, but one of the major producers of food in this
country. I had breakfast with him last year, and I said I think
food safety is a big issue of the future. And he kind of
chuckled, and he said, ``Senator, if that is all you have to
worry about, why are you worrying at all? We have got the
safest food supply in the world.''
Well, I can't quarrel with that, but I will tell you within
a month or two that man was hit with a food safety crisis in
his company that cost him literally hundreds of millions of
dollars. I think he takes a new attitude toward food safety.
There is a vulnerability out there where, unfortunately, the
bad actors are going to give some good actors a bad name if we
are not careful. And for the consumer's sake and for the sake
of egg producers who are doing the right job and using the
right standards, I hope we have some sort of a code of conduct,
an enforceable code of conduct, that we say this will stand by
it. If it has UEP on the label, or whatever it is, you know
that you are going to get a product that is a quality product
whether you shop in Illinois or California, Florida or New
York. That is what I think we should be moving toward.
I thank you all for your contribution today. It has been a
great hearing, and you have helped to make it so.
The record will remain open for 5 days after the conclusion
of the hearing. Thank you very much.
[Whereupon, at 12:27 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
----------
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.001
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.002
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.003
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.004
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.005
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.006
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.007
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.008
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.009
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.010
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.011
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.012
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.013
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.014
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.015
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.016
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.017
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.018
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.019
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.020
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.021
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.022
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.023
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.024
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.025
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.026
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.027
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.028
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.029
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.030
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.031
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.032
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.033
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.034
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.035
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.036
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.037
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.038
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.039
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.040
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.041
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.042
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.043
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.044
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.045
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.046
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.047
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.048
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.049
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.050
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.051
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.052
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.053
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.054
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.055
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.056
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.057
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.058
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.059
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.060
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.061
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.062
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.063
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.064
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.065
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.066
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.067
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.068
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.069
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.070
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.071
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.072
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.073
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.074
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.075
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.076
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.077
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.078
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.079
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.080
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.081
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.082
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.083
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.084
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.085
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.086
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.087
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.088
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.089
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.090
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.091
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.092
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.093
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.094
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.095
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.096
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.097
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.098
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.099
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.100
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.101
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.102
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.103
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.104
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.105
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.106
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.107
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.108
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.109
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.110
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.111
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.112
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.113
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.114
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.115
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.116
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.117
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.118
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.119
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.120
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.121
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.122
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.123
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.124
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.125
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.126
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.127
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.128
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.129
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.130
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.131
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.132
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.133
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.134
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.135
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.136
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.137
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.138
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.139
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.140
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.141
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.142
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.143
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.144
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.145
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.146
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.147
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.148
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.149
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.150
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.151
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.152
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.153
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.154
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.155
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.156
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.157
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.158
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.159
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.160
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.161
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.162
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.163
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.164
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.165
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.166
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.167
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.168
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.169
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.170
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.171
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.172
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.173
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.174
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.175
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.176
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.177
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.178
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.179
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.180
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.181
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.182
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.183
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.184
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.185
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9578.186