Regardless of your views on the recent election, maintaining the political status quo makes predicting next year’s changes in meat and poultry regulation easier.

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.