Washington Takes Aim at Bacteria in Our Foods

The Food and Drug Administration, skewered in the early 1990s for its dilatory approval of new drugs, particularly those that some doctors thought useful against AIDS, in more recent times has been accused of a laggardly pace in the second of its purviews, protection of Americans against food-borne diseases.

Stung, the agency has mounted a vigorous response: Earlier this month it banned all cow, sheep and goat tissue in animal feeds. Some manufacturers still use animal material in feed despite growing evidence that it can harbor microorganisms harmless to the feeding animals but sometimes fatal to the humans who eat them.

In another development, in his radio address last weekend President Clinton proposed to spend $43 million to help the FDA and other agencies spot outbreaks of food-borne illnesses before they become widespread. White House spokeswoman Mary Ellen Blynn said the president’s proposal will “help give us the data to prevent future outbreaks” of E. coli bacteria, which, lurking in foods like apple juice and hamburgers, have killed five American children in recent years.

In fact, the president’s proposal is aimed less at prevention than at early detection. There is a growing acknowledgment among scientists that there is no certain way to keep deadly microorganisms from entering the nation’s food supply. The FDA’s new regulations, for instance, may require screening for well-known agents like E. coli but they will miss other pathogens that, while harmful to humans, are both undetectable and harmless in animals.

The danger of disease transmission through food should diminish markedly when the FDA’s new animal feed regulations and the president’s improved oversight system are implemented later this year. That’s some comfort.

The dangers in another area--disease transmission through surgery involving animal material--could rise, however. That’s because the FDA last September issued guidelines permitting “xenotransplantation,” a surgical procedure in which hearts and other vital animal organs are transplanted into humans.

The Jan. 17 decision of the British government to ban xenotransplants has raised concerns in Congress that the FDA’s guidelines do not adequately protect Americans. Some of these concerns are legitimate. While the agency’s guidelines carefully specify how xenotransplants should be performed, for instance, they fail to indicate which patients could most benefit from the procedure.

The drug company CytoTherapeutics is now seeking FDA approval to implant fetal calf adrenal cells in late-stage cancer patients to relieve pain. That procedure holds promise. But the research and review process must be far more thorough before xenotransplants are performed on healthier patients.

If the FDA tightens and carefully implements its regulations, the transfer of animal tissue to humans seems worth the risk to people who lack medical alternatives, and their numbers are growing. In 1994, 3,072 patients died waiting for human organ transplants, and it’s estimated that as many as 100,000 more died before even getting on a list.