Food Safety

On average, each American eats about 245 eggs annually. During the last decade, eggs contaminated with Salmonella Enteritidis bacteria have increasingly been implicated as a cause of foodborne illness in the United States. The bacteria may have sickened about 300,000 people in 1997, killing about 230 of them. More than three-quarters of the Salmonella Enteritidis outbreaks between 1985 and 1998 were linked to eggs, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This report reviews the adequacy of the system for ensuring the safety of eggs. Specifically, GAO examined whether (1) a prevention-based approach to food safety has been applied to egg production and processing, (2) a new federal policy on egg refrigeration will effectively reduce the risks associated with contaminated eggs, (3) federal and state policies on serving eggs to vulnerable populations and dating egg cartons are consistent, and (4) federal egg safety resources are used efficiently and policies are coordinated effectively. GAO summarized this report in testimony before Congress; see: Food Safety: U.S. Needs a Consistent Farm-to-Table Approach to Egg Safety, by Lawrence J. Dyckman, Director, Food and Agriculture Issues, before the Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, Restructuring and the District of Columbia, Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs. GAO/T-RCED-99-232, July 1 (13 pages).

GAO noted that: (1) the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not established a prevention-based approach to shell egg production and processing that would reduce or eliminate Salmonella Enteritidis (SE) contamination by identifying, controlling, and monitoring known safety risks; (2) at the state level, 13 states, responsible for about 38 percent of the nation's egg production, have established voluntary prevention-based programs for egg farms; (3) however, because these programs use different approaches to testing for the presence of SE and monitoring the farms, they do not provide a uniform level of risk reduction; (4) moreover, the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) does not require a prevention-based approach in processing plants where eggs are broken to create egg products; (5) the first national requirement to refrigerate eggs at 45 degrees Fahrenheit or below from the time they are packed until they reach the consumer may not be as effective as possible in reducing the risks from eggs contaminated with SE; (6) FSIS has issued regulations that take effect in August 1999 requiring that eggs be refrigerated after packing until they reach retail locations; (7) however, once eggs reach these locations, federal regulations will not require that they be refrigerated because FDA has not yet issued the necessary regulations; (8) inconsistent policies and practices in three areas have weakened the nation's egg safety efforts; (9) only half the states have followed FDA's recommendation that that they require food service operators to use pasteurized eggs or egg products when serving populations that are more likely to suffer severe health consequences from eating contaminated eggs; (10) in addition, inconsistent policies on returning eggs from grocery stores to processors to be repackaged, redated, and returned to the retail level and inconsistent practices for expiration dating on egg cartons can mislead consumers about the eggs' freshness and may pose a food safety risk; (11) the organizational and regulatory framework for egg safety makes it difficult to ensure that resources are directed to the areas of highest risk and that policies are effectively coordinated; and (12) in addition, although GAO reported in 1992 on the need for better coordination between FDA and the Department of Agriculture on egg safety issues, each agency is developing its own labelling requirements for egg cartons that will become effective at different times, and the agencies have still not agreed on a comprehensive unified approach for improving egg safety.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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