Aussie link suspected in US E. coli scare

Australian beef has been implicated in a recall of mince in the United States, after the meat tested positive for the potentially deadly E. coli bacteria.

The meat was recalled in South Carolina last week after a strain of the bacteria was found by local food safety inspectors.

Now the Australian Department of Agriculture has confirmed it has been notified that Australian beef has been implicated - although it is not clear if the Australian product was the source of the contamination.

Lobbyist Tony Corbo, from the Washington DC-based Food and Water Watch, says the group is concerned the US food safety inspection service did not catch the bacteria at the ports of entry.

"Why did it take a state laboratory to find the E. coli?" he asked.

Australian authorities emphasise the Australian meat tested negative to E. coli before it left Australia and complied with US regulations at the border.

The United States is Australia's second largest beef export market and is worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Mr Corbo has painted a worst-case scenario if the problem is eventually traced back to the Australian beef.

"It may involve that particular plant losing its right to export to the United States," he said.

But he says if it becomes systemic, the US food security authority may suspend all Australian beef imports.

"They have done it in the past where they have suspended imports from an entire country," he said.

'Excellent record'

However, widely respected food safety professor James Marsden, from Kansas State University, says it is most likely that the Australian beef will be cleared.

"The way ground beef is manufactured in the United States, there may be eight or different meat components in that lot of product that tested positive," he said.

Mr Marsden says that means that just because E. coli has been found in the finished product, it does not mean the bacteria came from the Australian components.

He says he would be surprised if the Australian meat was the cause of the outbreak.

"Australia has such an excellent record in food safety," he said.

"There are a lot of companies frankly that apply interventions to the non-Australian or non-New Zealand imported beef and when they use Australian beef or New Zealand beef, they don't even apply an intervention because the incidence of E coli 0157-H7 has been negligible."

Source: ABC News, 24 May 2012