April 11, 2001
		Bush Administration Embarrasses Itself on Salmonella in School Lunches Last week, the Bush administration proposed dropping standardized testing for the deadly bacteria salmonella in ground beef intended for the federal school-lunch program and did an immediate about-face the next day when Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman disavowed the proposal. Instead of the salmonella tests, Dr. Ken Clayton of the Agricultural Marketing Service at the Agriculture Department had proposed that schools be allowed to serve irradiated meat. Ordered last June by the Clinton administration, the salmonella testing was met with fierce and vocal opposition by the meat industry. In addition to irradiation, Dr. Clayton outlined a proposal that would require an acid rinse of slaughtering facilities that want to sell ground beef. Ground beef is a known breeding ground for dangerous microbes. Meat processors who do net meet a standard of cleanliness a certain percentage of the time would be barred from supplying federal programs, including the school lunch program. Of the proposal, Senator Richard J. Durbin (D-IL) said, "First it was arsenic in the drinking water. Now it's salmonella in school lunches. Where will it end?" Carol Foreman Tucker, director of the Food Policy Institute of the Consumer Federation of America did not support the end of salmonella testing. "They caught five million pounds of meat that had salmonella in it last year that they wouldn't have caught, and they won't catch it next year." On April 5, however, Secretary Veneman said that she had never approved the dropping of the salmonella tests and only learned on Wednesday night that it had been officially published. Secretary Veneman said she was keeping the tests. Veneman also rescinded the plan to allow schools to serve irradiated meat, a process many consumers and food safety groups find objectionable. Many oppose irradiation for health concerns and a belief that it will allow meat producers abide by lower standards of hygiene. Carol Foreman Tucker said, "Increasingly things like ground beef can come from as many as 100 different animals, so you have to have more controls over the safety of hamburger." Salmonella causes 600 deaths a year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Industry officials opposed testing ground beef for salmonella because it increased the cost of the meat served in school lunches. The testing was imposed after a Texas meat-processing plant that supplied as much as 45 percent of the ground beef in the school lunch program failed random salmonella tests three times. The judge overseeing the case ruled that the Department of Agriculture hadn't the authority to conduct such tests, and the plant remained open despite the opposition of health authorities. The plant closed later in the year when the department decided to appeal the ruling.