Few Food -Borne Illnesses in Schools Are From School Food

March 15, 2000

A new General Accounting Office report finds only 8 of 20 food-borne illness outbreaks in the nation's schools during 1997 were from food served in the school meal programs. The other 12 came from foods consumed in schools but brought from home or obtained from other sources. Still, GAO has two recommendations for USDA, one to help schools develop food procurement contracts that further ensure food safety.

"We identified five instances during the last five years in which USDA, in collaboration with others, removed, replaced or disposed of USDA-donated foods because of the potential for the foods to cause food borne illness," says GAO.

Two of the five actions were associated with the food-borne illness outbreaks involving USDA-donated foods during 1997 and 1998. The actions involved about 1.7 million pounds of strawberries, 556,000 pounds of beef patties, 400,000 pounds of poultry, 25,000 pounds of beef and vegetable protein patties and an unknown quantity of ground beef.

"However, these five actions may not represent all the food safety actions taken, because USDA lacks a process to systematically identify and document such actions," the report adds.

A multi-agency food distribution re-engineering team has proposed that the Food and Nutrition Service's food distribution division establish a database to continuously track all food safety actions taken on donated foods.

The report notes that USDA has established procurement policies and procedures that are intended to help ensure the safety of food donated to schools. USDA's provisions for the safety of donated foods are contained in procurement contracts used to purchase the foods from various suppliers.

Some of these contract provisions are based on the same food safety regulations that are intended to protect food sold to the general public.

The report recommends that USDA "expeditiously develop a database for continuously documenting all food safety actions taken on foods donated to the department's food assistance programs and provide information to assist schools in developing food procurement contracts that further ensure food safety."

For 1998, nationwide data on outbreaks of food-borne illness in schools were not available from the Centers for Disease Control. However, the health department records from the 10 states reporting outbreaks of food-borne illness in schools to CDC in 1997 showed nine additional outbreaks associated with food served in the school meal programs during 1998, according to GAO.

USDA-donated ground beef and potato rounds served in school meals were suspected sources for two outbreaks, while the other seven were not linked to USDA-donated foods. The 1998 outbreaks associated with the school meal programs affected an estimated 921 individuals.

Although USDA generally concurred with the accuracy of the information in the GAO report, officials were concerned that the report did not address USDA efforts and resources devoted to providing school food service personnel with guidance on safe food handling practices.

USDA said it considers food handling and preparation to be the most significant areas affecting the safety of food served to school children, because foods purchased by schools, like food purchased by the general public, already are protected by federal, state and local food safety regulations.

"We agree that such food handling practices are important in ensuring the safety of school meals," said GAO. "However, evaluating this particular aspect of USDA's food safety activities was beyond the scope of the work we had been requested to conduct."

USDA agreed to act on the recommendation to provide schools with information on safety provisions to be included in school food procurement contracts.