Pork: Are trichinosis regulations too stringent?

Thursday, June 10, 2010

With this parasitic disease practically non-existent in Canada, the pork industry believes that current food safety regulations and cooking temperature recommendations are unnecessarily restrictive

by DON STONEMAN

Trichinosis, a parasitic disease, has been virtually wiped out by the nearly universal use of confinement feeding and by stringent regulation of garbage feeding of pigs. Is it still causing grief for the pork industry because of overly tough restaurant and food service cooking regulations?

Ontario Pork has quit serving samples of pork loin at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair, says communications manager Keith Robbins. Toronto Public Health inspectors demand that pork be cooked to an internal temperature of 71 C. Tenderloin, in particular "tends to go rubbery" when cooked to that temperature. The product "was unpresentable from our point of view," Robbins says.

Toronto Public Health inspectors follow the provincial Health Protection and Promotion Act's Food Premises Regulation 562, says manager Jim Chan.

Andrew Morrison, spokesperson for the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, says the regulation was amended to include cooking temperatures for meat and fish in 2004, but trichinosis was not singled out. "There was no specific focus on any one meat product or on any particular pathogen." The rules were "based on the current scientific research available and to bring them into line with other cooking temperatures and food safety requirements that were established in other jurisdictions," Morrison says.

Infections from trichinosis can be fatal, or can leave victims in nearly constant muscular pain for the rest of their lives. But, according to an appendix to a provincial government document entitled "Infection Diseases Protocol, 2009, "trichinosis is a rare disease in Ontario, with less than one reported case per year. Only two cases were reported between the years 2003-2007."

The document identifies "swine" as a reservoir for the disease along with dogs, cats, horses, rats and wild animals. The disease is transmitted by "eating raw or undercooked meat . . .  containing the Trichinella larvae, in particular pork products and beef products."

The province requires that confirmed and suspected cases be reported to the medical officer of health.

Trichinellosis in pigs is designated as a reportable disease under the federal Health of Animals Act. About 30,000 market hogs, 3,000 breeder hogs and 200 wild boar carcasses are tested annually. An Alberta government policy manual says T. spiralis, the trichinosis parasite, is killed instantly at 63 C.

Another Alberta government document, released last fall, says "trichinosis is very rare in Canada and has not been detected in Alberta hogs for many years . . . Cooking temperatures of 58 C or higher will kill the parasite."

Cases are rare enough that the Public Health Agency of Canada removed trichinosis from national surveillance in 2000.

Cooking temperatures recommended by the federal government do not allow for rare or medium cooking of pork, points out Kimberley Green, nutritionist for Ontario Pork. (See Figure 1 on page 62)

Robbins says preliminary results from a comprehensive consumer study commissioned by the Canadian Pork Council show that food safety "is not a top issue." Consumer polling reveals that "perceptions of quality are driven by taste, consistency, nutritional value and freshness."

"We believe the current regulations are not necessary, but that is an opinion," says Gary Stordy, public relations manager for the Canadian Pork Council. Stordy says recent studies conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture will bring a "scientific approach to the discussion about proper (cooking) temperatures . . .We are looking forward to getting that information here in the near future." BF