Research on risk of contamination

THE NECESSITY of cleaning bovine hides during beef slaughter has been emphasised by a Teagasc National Food Centre research team which has estimated the risk of illness from eating minced beef or beef burgers at about one case per one million burgers/mince beef dishes.

The danger posed by E coli 0157 contamination of beef was brought home to farmers in the mid-1990s, when beef processors started penalising for dirty cattle and farmers started cleaning fat cattle before sending them to factories.

But the dangerous bacteria haven’t gone away.