How Did One Man Contaminate Half a Billion Eggs, and Why Wasn’t He Stopped?

A individual man — poultry tycoon Austin J. DeCoster — was responsible for this class ’s salmonella outbreakthat churn up almost 2,000 people across 22 states , and forced a recall of half a billion testis . How did it get to this point ?

DeCoster ’s egg operation were , perhaps , anomalous in terms of their pure grossness — report from one of his plants quote overrun feces , rats , flies , and “ liquid manure leak from a manure pit . ” Who wants an omelet ! At a Congressional hearing yesterday , DeCoster claimed the generator of the irruption was contaminated food — ignoring entirely the vile state of his hatcheries .

Perhaps the most disgusting part about DeCoster ’s fib is that this most recent outbreak was a sequel — fashion back in 1987 , eggs from his plant send 500 people to the hospital with frightful casing of salmonella . “ It was like a war zone , ” recounts Dr. Philippe Tassy to the New York Times .

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So what happen in the 23 years between that outbreak and ours ? Very little , it would seem . A patchwork of country regulators strapped indorsement of varying severeness — New York banned the cut-rate sale of his eggs entirely , while DeCoster moved his operations to Iowa , which requires no salmonella testing at all . Maine , however , go on a tight centre on DeCoster ’s complex — and often find bacterial specimen when field agent were sent to lead tests .

thing do n’t seem significantly better today . At the aforementioned hearing , lawmakers guide to testing resultant role thatfound 426 positive bacterial samples present at DeCoster ’s farm , include 73 “ potentially positive ” for the precise stock behind this year ’s rampaging outbreak . So why were 426 positive samples of anything not enough to keep these egg out of your breakfast ? Federal law , until this past July , simply did n’t make it so . And by July , it was a little late . Before this Union mandate , DeCoster was apparently free to do as much or as little as he wished with the data at hand . “ expert advised that egg testing is a poor index , aver DeCoster . “ Our perception was that egg test results always would be minus . ”

So a farming mogul with no regard for the health of anything — chickens , humans , whatever — was able to take the password of his “ expert ” over the cogent evidence of scientists . And this is inexcusable . We have the technology to keep a DeCoster - style outbreak from pass off again — screen facility for pestilent bacteria uses the same basic principle as any grade schoolhouse petri dish experimentation . Just dab and go . If pollution is found , test the eggs themselves is practicable and in force as well . The breakdown lies not in the science , but in the legislative langor that couch farming interest group over our safe . Although this most late irruption has been contained , agricultural biosecurity is in clear need of some legislative time on the griddle .

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