National Egg Day: FACT’s Work on Egg Safety
By Steve Roach, Safe and Healthy Food Program Director
Foodborne Illness Outbreaks Caused by Salmonella in Eggs.
Today is National Egg Day, so we figured we’d discuss a little about eggs and food safety. Most discussions these days around eggs and germs focus on bird flu because of its devastating impact on the health of laying hens and other domestic poultry, as well as the impact on the availability and cost of eggs. When I started at FACT in the late 1990s, another germ, Salmonella Enteritidis, was what we were worried about. Salmonella Enteritidis is a specific type of bacteria that can cause illness when consumed in food. Diarrhea and stomach cramps are the most common symptoms of Salmonella infection, but it can cause more serious illness if it infects parts of the body outside the gut, and can also cause long-term joint pain. Children under 5, adults over 65, and people with weakened immune systems are most at risk.
During the 1980s, there was a rapid rise in infections caused by Salmonella Enteritidis (SE), with undercooked eggs as the most common source of infection. The number of people reported sick from SE almost tripled between 1975 and 1985. SE has the ability to infect the contents of an egg before the shell is formed. This means washing eggs or keeping them clean of manure does not help very much. SE is one reason why it is not smart to eat raw cookie or cake batter because you never know if the SE germs were in the eggs you purchased. Since I was working a lot with SE when my children were small, my now adult kids are very careful with raw eggs, though we do still eat runny yolks. When they were growing up, we referred to eggs as ‘Salmonella eggs’ to keep the risk in mind. This is what can happen when you have a parent who works in food safety.
FACT was particularly interested in egg safety because we had started the Nest Eggs pilot in the 1980s to show the market potential for selling more humanely produced eggs. Unlike almost all laying hens at the time, Nest Eggs laying hens were not kept in cages but were kept in open barns with roosting areas and nest boxes for laying. We sold the eggs to markets in the Northeast and Chicago. These chickens did not have access to the outdoors but were given much more space and room to move around than caged layers. We were also interested in SE because research indicated that SE was less common in cage-free layers than in those in cages, likely due to lower stress in the birds given more space. In our Nest Eggs flocks in Pennsylvania, we had an extensive testing program for SE. We would test the boxes the chicks came in, then test multiple times during the life of the flock. If SE were found, we would divert those eggs to be used in cooked products.
FACT was not the only organization concerned about SE. The egg industry as a whole was suffering from a bad reputation linked to cholesterol in eggs. In the 1980s, it was commonly believed that cholesterol in the diet causes high blood cholesterol and heart disease. When SE infections were added on top of the cholesterol concerns, the egg industry had a problem. The industry, particularly in the Northeast, like FACT, started its own voluntary program for testing for SE in egg laying facilities and diverting the eggs when it was detected. At the end of the 1990s, there was a push for a federal program to require testing for SE on facilities where laying chickens were kept. Because FACT had our own laying farms and our own SE testing program, we were considered a credible source on SE testing. We worked with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the egg industry to get a SE testing program implemented. In 2009, the FDA published a rule requiring all large egg-laying operations to take steps to control SE, test for the germs, and divert eggs to cooked products if it was found. That program is still in place. The data show a drop in the number of outbreaks of SE from eggs, though the reductions took place before the rule took effect.
One of the most frustrating things about the Shell Egg rule is that the number of people infected with SE did not go down. Does that mean the rule was a failure? No, not really. What happened was that SE spread through chickens raised for meat starting around 2000, about the same time the egg industry really started to get the germs under control in layer flocks. The amount of SE found on chicken carcasses increased by four times between 2000 and 2005 and has persisted since then. Chickens raised for meat are regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), not the FDA, and there is no law allowing the USDA to require livestock operations to test and control for germs that make people sick, like the FDA was able to require for laying chickens. Last year, the USDA published a requirement for testing raw chicken for SE and other types of Salmonella that commonly make people sick, but the requirement was recently withdrawn by the Trump administration.
Without the new requirement, SE will likely continue to be the most common type of Salmonella, making people sick with raw chicken meat, the most common source of the germs. What can you do? Even with the shell egg rule, you should treat raw eggs as potentially contaminated with SE germs, so do not eat them raw and keep them from cross-contaminating foods you consume raw. That means no raw cookie dough. This is particularly important for people over the age of 65, under 5, and with weakened immune systems. While SE is less common in eggs raised outside of cages or on pasture, SE germs can still be present in humanely raised animals. The advice for chicken is the same - cook it to the correct temperature and avoid cross-contamination.
FACT will continue to push for requirements that factory farms control dangerous germs in their facilities. We are currently working on a report on Salmonella in feed since Salmonella germs in animal feed can make the animals sick and can also lead to people getting sick when they consume animal products or vegetables contaminated by animal manure.