Clinton Has New Strategy to Improve Egg Safety

December 13, 1999

President Clinton has proposed a food safety strategy designed to improve the safety of eggs. It will take "substantial funding increases each year," says Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman, and also calls for states to be involved in egg safety improvements.

Under the plan, egg producers and processors would implement one of two strategies to improve egg safety: implement rigorous on-farm agricultural and sanitation practices, extensive testing for salmonella and divert eggs to pasteurization or cooked products based on positive salmonella testing, or implement new technologies to kill salmonella such as in-shell pasteurization at the packer stage.

The plan also provides a strategy to consolidate egg safety oversight. The Food and Drug Administration and USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service now share federal regulatory responsibility for egg safety. Under the plan, FDA would develop consistent, nationwide on-farm preventive controls and enforce them by contracting with the states while maintaining federal oversight. FSIS would develop and enforce standards at the packer-processor level.

In his Saturday radio address, President Clinton said the goal is to eliminate salmonella in eggs by 2010. Using the first strategy, he said, infected eggs could be prevented from ever reaching grocery stores, and the second strategy uses in-shell pasteurization that "will help keep eggs safe and free of bacteria."

The United Egg Producers, a group that represents about 80% of U.S. egg production, said the administration plan had the potential to benefit both producers and consumers. However, its ultimate judgment on the plan, UEP said, will partly depend on how the administration implements one of its components: a warning label that the FDA proposed last summer. UEP said the wording initially proposed for the label was overly alarmist and would discourage egg consumption unnecessarily.

The increased attention to salmonella comes at a time when public health news on the pathogen has actually been more encouraging. Data from the government's FoodNet monitoring system showed a 44% decline in incidence between 1996 and 1998.

The administration also is implementing a plan designed to circumvent unsafe imported food from reaching the retail level. Steps will be implemented to prevent "port shopping" in which unsafe food stopped at one port is "shopped" to another. Customs and the FDA also will stamp rejected food with a clear label "The United States Refused" and step up the policy of destroying imported food that poses a serious threat to human health.