Meat Industry Responds to Attacks in New York Times

J. Patrick Boyle, president and chief executive of the American Meat Institute, sent a letter to the editor of the New York Times in response to the article “The Burger That Shattered Her Life: Trail of E. Coli Shows Flaws in Ground Beef Inspection System”.

In the letter Boyle writes that he meat industry has made great strides in improving the safety of its products, noting that according to the Department of Agriculture, despite changes in the government’s program that have made E. coli testing much more sensitive, the incidence of E. coli O157:H7 in ground beef declined 45 percent since 2000 and now occurs at a rate of less than one half of 1 percent. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, E. coli O157:H7 infections in people have decreased by 44 percent since 2000.

Click here to read the entire letter.

Source: New York Times