Congressional and Public Affairs
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Andrea McNally 

National Advisory Committee Concludes Performance Standards Are Important Verification Tools

WASHINGTON, Oct. 11, 2002 -- The National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods (NACMCF) concluded in a final report released today that performance standards are valuable tools for verifying process control at slaughter and ground beef establishments.  The Committee made the conclusions after addressing several questions relating to performance standards from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service.

The NACMCF includes scientists with expertise in microbiology, risk assessment, epidemiology, public health and food science.  The Committee provides scientific advice and recommendations to the Secretary of Agriculture and the Secretary of Health and Human Services on public health issues relative to the safety and wholesomeness of the U.S. food supply, including the development of microbiological criteria, review and evaluation of risk assessment data and methodologies for assessing microbiological hazards in foods.   

“The Committee has determined that performance standards are a valuable measure of total process control. We value their role in helping FSIS and industry evaluate the effectiveness of preventive measures,” said Dr. Elsa Murano, under secretary for Food Safety. 

The NACMCF noted that existing public health statistics make it very difficult to specifically attribute reductions in enteric (intestinal) diseases to performance standards.  In addition, the Committee noted that before new standards or approaches are adopted, more research should be done and alternative standards or approaches need to be examined. 

The Committee made the following recommendations related to research needs:

• Annual studies to determine the prevalence of Salmonella, coliforms, E. coli O157:H7 and other indicator organisms, so that appropriate standards can be developed to verify process control;
• Additional studies to investigate decontamination procedures and determine if existing treatments can be further enhanced;
• Studies to determine the steps from farm through distribution where new technologies could be introduced to further reduce the frequency of pathogens in meat; and
• Studies to determine if the intervention steps targeted to reduce Salmonella are beneficial in reducing contamination by other enteric pathogens.

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is expected to release a report on performance standards in the spring of 2003.  Murano said that both the NACMCF and the NAS reports will be carefully considered as the Department continues to evaluate strategies on the use of performance standards.

Copies of the Committee’s report are available at www.fsis.usda.gov.

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The linked report is a PDF file.

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