Sen. Chuck Schumer said yesterday he wants the government to track all meat products from the time of slaughter until they arrive in stores to help prevent diseases like mad cow, E. coli, salmonella and listeria.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture would then be responsible for coding and registering the meat products so that public health officials could easily track contaminated packages and remove them from stores, Schumer said.
“As we begin the summer barbecue season, we’re not protected against meat diseases such as E. coli, salmonella and listeria,” Schumer said.
He said the USDA should have the ability to shut down plants that distribute bad meat, under the proposed Meat and Poultry Pathogen Reduction Act of 2003, known as “Kevin’s Law.”
The law is named after 2-year-old Kevin Kowalcyk of Wisconsin, who died in 2001 of E. coli.
Last year, 5,000 people died of meat poisoning and 325,000 were hospitalized, Schumer said.
Nanette Beno of Long Island lost her mother, Gertrude, 70, last July to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, which could be caused by mad-cow disease.
“If I tell you watching her die was a nightmare, that’s an understatement,” she said.
Beno’s mother suffered for a year with the disease. Doctors were never able to find out how she was infected.
Jodi Forrest of Westchester lost her father, Leonard, 66, also to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and doctors were similarly baffled.