In my column last month (“USDA policies drag down processors who ‘test and find’, The National Provisioner, March 2012), I discussed how current FSIS policy (which invariably reacts critically to any positive testing results) discourages companies from aggressively testing to find pathogens in their products.

In my column last month (“USDA policies drag down processors who ‘test and find’, The National Provisioner, March 2012), I discussed how current FSIS policy (which invariably reacts critically to any positive testing results) discourages companies from aggressively testing to find pathogens in their products.

More further-processors are turning to NAMP and other meat and poultry associations for education and training on how to respond to the recent FSIS action declaring the “Big 6” non-O157 STECs as “adulterants.”

In a Federal Register Notice published Sept. 20, 2011, the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced that six shiga toxin producing E. coli serogroups — O26, O45, O103, O111, O121, and O145 (hereinafter STEC) — are adulterants on raw, non-intact beef product or components in the same manner as E. coli O157:H7.