ABSTRACT
Prior to the early 1900s in the United States, the handling of foods, specifically meat, was not consistent and oversight was according to laws in each state in which a facility was located. The development and maturation of transportation allowed the rapid movement of live animals and distribution of meat products, and, as a consequence, the meat industry concentrated in major midwestern U.S. cities where labour, particularly immigrant labour, was abundant. Federal oversight was negligible for domestic meat production until The Jungle written by Upton Sinclair was published in 1906. The intent of the book was to highlight the plight of immigrants in the Chicago slaughterhouses, but the vivid description of the unhygienic slaughterhouse operations and the improper preparation and handling of product led to a public outcry for government regulation. Following a government investigation, the Federal Meat Inspection Act (FMIA) and the Pure Food and Drug Act were quickly passed in the same year. The FMIA mandated the inspection of livestock before slaughter (antemortem), the carcasses after slaughter (postmortem)
and sanitary standards as well as authorized the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to monitor and inspect facilities for slaughter and processing. The inspections required by FMIA provided consumers with assurances that animals were healthy and meat from these animals was wholesome. Following a 1992-3 outbreak of illnesses linked to Escherichia coli O157:H7, a Shiga-toxin-producing strain of Escherichia coli (STEC), in ground beef, the Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) of the USDA established that E. coli O157:H7 was to be considered an adulterant in raw ground beef and sale of this contaminated raw product was prohibited (FSIS, 1994). This ruling by the FSIS was revolutionary in that a specific pathogen was regulated in raw meat, and subsequently FSIS established that other STEC in addition to E. coli O157:H7 were to be considered as adulterants of raw ground beef and non-intact raw beef products (FSIS, 1999, 2012).
