Contamination

Egg Recall Raises Concerns Over Salmonella

Should we adopt expensive policies to combat the bug?

The huge recall of 380 million eggs is causing some to question of whether American poultry farms should adopt new practices to keep salmonella out of food. Hundreds of people have fallen ill because of the tainted eggs, as the outbreak looks to have kicked off in May. Experts suspect the source of the contaminated eggs, Iowa company Wright County Egg, could have a very sick flock of birds. New rules for testing for salmonella and sanitizing henhouses went into effect July 9, but similar policies have been in place in Denmark and Sweden for years. Those countries have kept salmonella out of poultry since the 1970s. If any birds tested positive, the whole flock would be killed, and the government compensated farmers for the loss. Europeans tend to try to prevent the disease, while Americans fix the problem after the harvest with pasteurization. American experts say European programs couldn’t work in the U.S.