Data collected by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control show a 23-percent overall drop in bacterial foodborne illness since 1996, which experts attribute to the state-of-the-art safety measures adopted within the last decade by processing plants.

"Much of this undoubtedly stems from the attention we’ve been giving food safety for the last 10 years," says Dr. Jean Weese, an Alabama Cooperative Extension System food scientist and Auburn University associated professor of Nutrition and Food Science. "Early in the 1990’s processing plants began implementing a space-age food safety technology that requires plant operators to account for every point along the food production chain."

"Under HACCP, plant operators are required to analyze the risks associated with food production, identifying the critical points along the processing chain where they are likely to be occur," Weese says. "Once these points are identified, processors work out a plan for monitoring these potential problems and correcting them when they occur."

In 1998, the U.S. Department of Agriculture required most of the nation’s meat and poultry processing plants to adopt HACCP procedures as an integral part of their processing operations. Most of these operations were required to start using HACCP by January 1999, although very small plants had until January, 2000.

Many of its principles already were in place in the low-acid canned food industry, which is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. FDA also established HACCP for the seafood industry 1995 and for the juice industry in January, 2001. The agency is also considering developing regulations that would establish HACCP as the food safety standard throughout other areas of the food industry, including both domestic and imported food products.

To complement HACCP, processing plants are also experimenting with a wide variety of other techniques to reduce pathogen numbers.

"They’re using heating treatments, gasses, acid sprays to treat the carcasses – you name it, just about every technique conceivable to reduce the numbers of bacteria on animal carcasses as they’re passed through the plant," Weese says.

Ironically, irradiation, considered the most effective technique for eradicating bacteria, has been approved for use on meat and poultry. And while the numbers of irradiated meat products produced in the United States has grown in recent years, many American consumers remain wary of this technology.

"We know that irradiation reduces bacteria numbers better than any other technique," Weese says. "In fact, the most common alternative to irradiation, cleaning meats with anti-bacterial solutions, will work to a degree but it is no substitute for irradiation."

Irradiation already is used routinely throughout Europe, most notably in the Netherlands.

The federal government also is exploring other ways to enhance standards of food safety in processing.

In mid-March, for example, members of Congress introduced a legislation that would restore the Agriculture Department’s authority to set and enforce standards for salmonella in meat and poultry. This would also include the power to close a processing plant that fails these expectations.