Professional Oklahoma Educators

In light of several recent deadly outbreaks of E. coli that led to a recall of ground beef from major supermarkets, U.S. Rep. George Miller the chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, asked the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) earlier this month to investigate the risk of contaminated beef from the commercial market entering the school meal programs. This would be part of an investigation GAO launched at Miller’s request last year into the safety of meat served in school cafeterias.

A recently issued GAO report identified standards and procedures to help reduce the risk of school children consuming recalled food purchased as commodities to use in school meals. The report specifically focused on eliminating contaminated food provided to schools through the commodity food program for use in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) school meal programs. In his letter today, Miller asked GAO to also examine what protocols exist to ensure foods, specifically processed meat, that schools purchase on the commercial market, outside of USDA’s commodity program, is safe.

Earlier this month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that beef contaminated with E. coli, produced at a New York meat processing plant, killed two people and sent 16 others to the hospital. That outbreak led to the recall of over 500,000 pounds of ground beef from retailers, including Trader Joe’s, Price Chopper’s and Giant Foods. While the U.S. Department of Agriculture requires that all ground beef made available to schools through the commodity program be tested for E.coli, ground beef processed and sold to schools on the commercial market is not subject to the same minimum standards. It is currently up to local school districts to decide whether to require ground beef products purchased from the commercial market to undergo similar quality and safety testing as USDA commodity products