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Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Industry Science Raises Concern over Safe Meat Packaging

At a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing yesterday, members, meat industry representatives and federal regulators debated the safety of using carbon monoxide to make packaged meat appear red for longer periods of time. Critics believe using the gas to preserve the redness of the meat, even after it has potentially spoiled, is misleading to consumers.

Tests into the safety of the practice revealed dubious results. According to The Washington Post:

The tests, conducted by Cargill and Hormel Foods, both of Minnesota, were part of a joint effort to persuade federal regulators to allow use of the gas without going through a public approval process. Inexplicably, however, the tests found that microbial counts on meat that had been left under-refrigerated went down over time instead of up, as expected, even as other indicators of spoilage increased, suggesting the possibility of some kind of error….

Yet Agriculture Department scientists did not question the data when they reviewed them a few weeks later, and then relied upon them to reverse the agency's earlier decision to oppose the technology.

Despite this revelation, officials from USDA and FDA would neither acknowledge the mystery nor commit to investigating the matter themselves. According to Reuters, "Officials at the Food and Drug Administration and U.S. Agriculture Department said they stand by the safety of the carbon monoxide practice and would revisit the process if new data becomes available."

Why would officials wait for new data when the existing data make no sense?