Lettuce recall may lead to changes in E. coli testing for beef
“This is something that we really have to look at,” said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), who plans to introduce a bill that would pre-empt the Agriculture Department by declaring a broad range of disease-causing E. coli to be illegal in ground beef and requiring the meat industry to begin testing for the microbes. “How many people do we have to see die or become seriously ill because of food poisoning?”
The six rarer E. coli strains aren’t tested by most companies, and it is not as easy to test for them as it is for E. coli O157:H7. The one involved in the lettuce recall was O145.