By Kate Scannell MD, Contributing columnist Bay Area News Group
PUBLISHED IN PRINT 09/18/2010
YOU RISK upsetting readers whenever you express strong opinions within medical columns. Writing about controversial health care issues predictably ruffles a few feathers. But "laying it all out" for public deliberation is a primary objective of op-ed writing, and this week's column shell make no eggs-ception.
So here goes. Simply put: I am opposed to the presence of disease-causing salmonella within eggs meant for human consumption.
Readers abreast of current news know that a strain of salmonella bacteria -- with a pathologic fondness for hens' eggs -- has sickened at least 1,500 people in the U.S. since April.
Last month, public health officials finally cracked the case and traced the source of the infected eggs to two industrial farms in Iowa. Those farm owners subsequently scrambled to recall more than half a billion potentially infected eggs.
Using alternative metrics, that's equivalent to a recall of 166,666 three-egg omelets, or about 106,500,000 milligrams of dietary cholesterol.
So, how did salmonella get inside those eggs, and which came first -- infected chickens or infected eggs?
To fully hatch answers to this quasi-metaphysical question demands that we look beyond the henhouse, at modern industrial agribusiness itself.
More immediately, it appears that salmonella first infected the hens -- and hens subsequently passed salmonella into their eggs. In turn, these tainted eggs were distributed to 22 states and a whole lot of grocery shelves and household refrigerators.
Recently, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) inspectors also discovered the culprit salmonella bacteria within batches of chicken feed that had been sold exclusively to the two Iowa farms under investigation -- suggesting contaminated feed may be the original source of the chicken and egg infections.
But to truly map the fault lines in this recent quake over food-borne illness, we must eggs-amine both modern commercial agribusiness -- or "eggribusiness" -- and our country's stale regulations governing food safety.
With the evolution of eggribusiness, factory farms increasingly occupied much of our agricultural landscape. Although we can still spot some 100-year-old farmhouses with hen coops as we drive rural highways, they are often obscured by massive metal buildings that "house" hundreds or thousands of laying hens. As The Economist notes: "In 1987, 95 percent of the country's (egg) output came from 2,500 producers; today, that figure is a mere 192."
In addition, about 95 percent of our egg-laying hens are now raised in cramped battery cages. Sometimes these cages are heavily contaminated with hen manure, creating ripe opportunity for salmonella to endure for months. Sometimes the hens' beaks are sheared to prevent hens from pecking each other to death. Such close and brutal quarters breed conditions where infections can spread rapidly.
Our dramatic consolidation of egg production to so few factories also means that tainted poultry products and eggs can market and distribute widely, quickly, and to far-away places. In the current outbreak, contaminated eggs were delivered to 22 states.
This unhealthy scenario characterizes "eggribusiness as usual." In fact, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), an estimated 2.2 million of the 65 billion eggs produced each year in the U.S. are contaminated with disease-causing strains of salmonella.
The CDC estimates that about 142,000 Americans become infected and 30 die each year from eating contaminated eggs. That can serve as unappetizing news for anyone who enjoys Caesar salad dressing, ice cream, eggnog, crab cakes, chiles rellenos, pasta dishes, and any egg dish that escapes pasteurization or thorough cooking.
To make matters worse, many farmers routinely feed antibiotics to their chickens in hopes of thwarting infections and promoting growth of their poultry. This practice has encouraged the emergence of new "super-bugs" -- bacteria that, after repetitive antibiotic exposure, develop antibiotic resistance. What an irony, really -- transmitting bacterial infections to humans while, at the same time, undermining the ability of antibiotics to cure them.
The sum toll of egg-borne salmonella infections on American consumers is substantial. It can be assessed in terms of frequent sickness and occasional death, lost work and productivity attributed to illness, and our mounting problem with antibiotic-resistant infections.
Public confidence in governmental oversight of the food safety system also suffers. Prior to this summer's salmonella outbreak, it was widely reported that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) had routinely noted worsening sanitation problems at one of the Iowa farms -- bugs, overflowing trash, and wanton egg residue. But the USDA didn't notify health authorities because it claimed to bear no responsibility for egg safety.
Apparently, when the USDA grades an egg, it grades it according to the appearance and texture of its interior, and the appearance and condition of its shell. So a mighty pretty egg can earn a USDA "Grade A" even when it deserves a failing grade for wholesomeness.
Still, even if not exactly part of the job description, the USDA could have been a good egg and routinely informed the FDA about its observations, particularly since Iowa -- despite being our country's largest egg producing state -- does not conduct its own state egg inspections. I suppose we've finally figured out who is not watching the hen house.
In August, the FDA finally inspected the two incriminated Iowa egg producers. Reports about one farm described pits underneath the egg-laying houses where chicken manure was sometimes piled eight feet high, and through which some hens had tracked, trying to (sensibly) exit their cages. It also noted mice, wild birds, and, at some plants, "live and dead flies too numerous to count."
I have worked on a farm, and news about rodents, bugs, birds, and animal excrement -- well, it's not news. But what makes the FDA's observations noteworthy and newsworthy is the grander-scale context in which they are embedded. Current mega-eggribusinesses act not only as eggs-ceptionally powerful magnets that attract eggs-traordinary amounts of manure and disease-carrying pests to small concentrated spaces — they can also serve as rapid mega-eggs-porters of tainted eggs to eggs-tensive areas of the country.
In the fall, the Senate is expected to consider a modernized food safety bill which the House passed in July. If legislated, it will require food companies to adopt stricter safety standards and undergo more frequent inspections, and it will grant the government the authority to order recalls of contaminated food.
That sounds eggs-cellent to me. I just hope the final regulations are sufficiently hard-boiled.
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––-
Kate Scannell is a Bay Area physician and syndicated columnist. Her new novel is "Flood Stage."
Copyright 2010 Kate Scannnell
PUBLISHED IN PRINT 09/18/2010
YOU RISK upsetting readers whenever you express strong opinions within medical columns. Writing about controversial health care issues predictably ruffles a few feathers. But "laying it all out" for public deliberation is a primary objective of op-ed writing, and this week's column shell make no eggs-ception.
So here goes. Simply put: I am opposed to the presence of disease-causing salmonella within eggs meant for human consumption.
Readers abreast of current news know that a strain of salmonella bacteria -- with a pathologic fondness for hens' eggs -- has sickened at least 1,500 people in the U.S. since April.
Last month, public health officials finally cracked the case and traced the source of the infected eggs to two industrial farms in Iowa. Those farm owners subsequently scrambled to recall more than half a billion potentially infected eggs.
Using alternative metrics, that's equivalent to a recall of 166,666 three-egg omelets, or about 106,500,000 milligrams of dietary cholesterol.
So, how did salmonella get inside those eggs, and which came first -- infected chickens or infected eggs?
To fully hatch answers to this quasi-metaphysical question demands that we look beyond the henhouse, at modern industrial agribusiness itself.
More immediately, it appears that salmonella first infected the hens -- and hens subsequently passed salmonella into their eggs. In turn, these tainted eggs were distributed to 22 states and a whole lot of grocery shelves and household refrigerators.
Recently, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) inspectors also discovered the culprit salmonella bacteria within batches of chicken feed that had been sold exclusively to the two Iowa farms under investigation -- suggesting contaminated feed may be the original source of the chicken and egg infections.
But to truly map the fault lines in this recent quake over food-borne illness, we must eggs-amine both modern commercial agribusiness -- or "eggribusiness" -- and our country's stale regulations governing food safety.
With the evolution of eggribusiness, factory farms increasingly occupied much of our agricultural landscape. Although we can still spot some 100-year-old farmhouses with hen coops as we drive rural highways, they are often obscured by massive metal buildings that "house" hundreds or thousands of laying hens. As The Economist notes: "In 1987, 95 percent of the country's (egg) output came from 2,500 producers; today, that figure is a mere 192."
In addition, about 95 percent of our egg-laying hens are now raised in cramped battery cages. Sometimes these cages are heavily contaminated with hen manure, creating ripe opportunity for salmonella to endure for months. Sometimes the hens' beaks are sheared to prevent hens from pecking each other to death. Such close and brutal quarters breed conditions where infections can spread rapidly.
Our dramatic consolidation of egg production to so few factories also means that tainted poultry products and eggs can market and distribute widely, quickly, and to far-away places. In the current outbreak, contaminated eggs were delivered to 22 states.
This unhealthy scenario characterizes "eggribusiness as usual." In fact, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), an estimated 2.2 million of the 65 billion eggs produced each year in the U.S. are contaminated with disease-causing strains of salmonella.
The CDC estimates that about 142,000 Americans become infected and 30 die each year from eating contaminated eggs. That can serve as unappetizing news for anyone who enjoys Caesar salad dressing, ice cream, eggnog, crab cakes, chiles rellenos, pasta dishes, and any egg dish that escapes pasteurization or thorough cooking.
To make matters worse, many farmers routinely feed antibiotics to their chickens in hopes of thwarting infections and promoting growth of their poultry. This practice has encouraged the emergence of new "super-bugs" -- bacteria that, after repetitive antibiotic exposure, develop antibiotic resistance. What an irony, really -- transmitting bacterial infections to humans while, at the same time, undermining the ability of antibiotics to cure them.
The sum toll of egg-borne salmonella infections on American consumers is substantial. It can be assessed in terms of frequent sickness and occasional death, lost work and productivity attributed to illness, and our mounting problem with antibiotic-resistant infections.
Public confidence in governmental oversight of the food safety system also suffers. Prior to this summer's salmonella outbreak, it was widely reported that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) had routinely noted worsening sanitation problems at one of the Iowa farms -- bugs, overflowing trash, and wanton egg residue. But the USDA didn't notify health authorities because it claimed to bear no responsibility for egg safety.
Apparently, when the USDA grades an egg, it grades it according to the appearance and texture of its interior, and the appearance and condition of its shell. So a mighty pretty egg can earn a USDA "Grade A" even when it deserves a failing grade for wholesomeness.
Still, even if not exactly part of the job description, the USDA could have been a good egg and routinely informed the FDA about its observations, particularly since Iowa -- despite being our country's largest egg producing state -- does not conduct its own state egg inspections. I suppose we've finally figured out who is not watching the hen house.
In August, the FDA finally inspected the two incriminated Iowa egg producers. Reports about one farm described pits underneath the egg-laying houses where chicken manure was sometimes piled eight feet high, and through which some hens had tracked, trying to (sensibly) exit their cages. It also noted mice, wild birds, and, at some plants, "live and dead flies too numerous to count."
I have worked on a farm, and news about rodents, bugs, birds, and animal excrement -- well, it's not news. But what makes the FDA's observations noteworthy and newsworthy is the grander-scale context in which they are embedded. Current mega-eggribusinesses act not only as eggs-ceptionally powerful magnets that attract eggs-traordinary amounts of manure and disease-carrying pests to small concentrated spaces — they can also serve as rapid mega-eggs-porters of tainted eggs to eggs-tensive areas of the country.
In the fall, the Senate is expected to consider a modernized food safety bill which the House passed in July. If legislated, it will require food companies to adopt stricter safety standards and undergo more frequent inspections, and it will grant the government the authority to order recalls of contaminated food.
That sounds eggs-cellent to me. I just hope the final regulations are sufficiently hard-boiled.
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––-
Kate Scannell is a Bay Area physician and syndicated columnist. Her new novel is "Flood Stage."
Copyright 2010 Kate Scannnell