Officials: NY plan curbs egg contamination

A security program activated 13 years ago in New York is designed to prevent the kind of contamination that has affected eggs from two Iowa farms, which ignited the largest egg recall in U.S. history, state agriculture officials said Wednesday.

The federal government began in July to require all states to adopt a similar program to New York's. However, the first signs of human infections in the egg-related outbreak surfaced in May.

State Agriculture Commissioner Patrick Hooker has declared all whole shell eggs produced in New York to be safe. The vast majority of state hen farms participate in the New York State Egg Quality Assurance Program, officials at the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets said. The program was enacted in 1997 primarily to prevent the introduction of Salmonella enteritidis onto poultry farms.

Jessica Ziehm, a department spokeswoman, said the program entails a range of measures, which include routine state inspections, blood tests of birds and maintaining standards on feeds.

The bacterium is a leading cause of infection in egg-laying hens and a major contaminant of eggs from unmonitored farms worldwide. The strain underlies the massive nationwide egg recall and is the confirmed cause of at least 1,300 human illnesses in 22 states where the eggs were sold.

Wright County Egg and Hillandale Farms, two Iowa egg producers that do not sell eggs in New York, are implicated in the recall of 500 million eggs sold under 24 brands. Salmonella swept through both facilities, possibly carried by rodents. Federal inspectors are still trying to trace the infection's source.

"Poultry are highly susceptible to pathogens, so poultry farms here have high biosecurity standards," said Ziehm, referring to the quality assurance program in New York.

She said the program is voluntary, but the majority of eggs sold in New York are from certified farms that participate in the program. There are 4,006 egg-producing farms in New York and more than 4 million egg-laying hens.

Some farmers vaccinate hens against the strain of salmonella found on the Iowa farms, Ziehm added, but most do not, adhering instead to state-designed environmental protocols, such as keeping salmonella-carrying vermin away from hens that might inadvertently eat rodent feces. "We do not require vaccination, and it's not required as part of the [newly enacted] federal program," she said.

Poultry do not have a long life span, Ziehm added, and some farmers don't want to pay for vaccinating birds. In Britain, where vaccination against Salmonella enteritidis is required, the infectious agent is no longer an issue, according to the World Health Organization.

Dr. Margaret Hamburg, U.S. Food and Drug Administration commissioner, warned consumers not to eat raw cookie dough or other products that might contain raw eggs contaminated with salmonella.