The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is responsible for food inspections except for meat and poultry. The FDA has been beset by problems with tainted tomatoes, contaminated peanut butter and more.

The U. S. Department of Agriculture is responsible for meat and poultry.

In the excerpt below, you will see how difficult it is to do that.

The great American hamburger may become an endangered favorite if the contamination cannot be corrected.

The New York Times

…”Meat companies and grocers have been barred from selling ground beef tainted by the virulent strain of E. coli known as O157:H7 since 1994, after an outbreak at Jack in the Box restaurants left four children dead. Yet tens of thousands of people are still sickened annually by this pathogen, federal health officials estimate, with hamburger being the biggest culprit. Ground beef has been blamed for 16 outbreaks in the last three years alone, including the one that left Ms. Smith paralyzed from the waist down. This summer, contamination led to the recall of beef from nearly 3,000 grocers in 41 states.” (Emphasis added)

…”The meat industry treats much of its practices and the ingredients in ground beef as trade secrets. While the Department of Agriculture has inspectors posted in plants and has access to production records, it also guards those secrets. Federal records released by the department through the Freedom of Information Act blacked out details of Cargill’s grinding operation that could be learned only through copies of the documents obtained from other sources. Those documents illustrate the restrained approach to enforcement by a department whose missions include ensuring meat safety and promoting agriculture markets.” (Emphasis added)

Source: The New York Times, October 3, 2009