The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) recently issued long-awaited standards to control listeria monocytogenes (commonly known as listeria), a dangerous food-borne bacterium often found in ready-to-eat foods. The new measures require plants that produce certain ready-to-eat (RTE) meat and poultry products to develop plans to control listeria and to verify the effectiveness of such programs through testing. The standards, however, do not set a minimum requirement for testing, and as such have “no minimum guarantee of consumer protection,” according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). FSIS has stated that it will conduct random testing to authenticate each establishment’s control program. These establishments must also provide FSIS with information on the production volume and “related information” on products affected by the measures. In addition, the new standards allow establishments to make claims on the labels of RTE products about the processes they use to eliminate or reduce listeria, or any efforts they make to suppress or limit the bacterium’s growth in products. There are approximately 2,500 victims of listeria-contaminated food each year, 500 of which are deadly, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than two years ago, the Bush administration allowed a Clinton-era proposal on listeria to be published for public comment after initially delaying it. However, it had begun to look like the administration had no intention of finalizing the standard. Perhaps it was the tragic listeria outbreak in the summer of 2002 that resulted in seven deaths, 46 illnesses, and three miscarriages that underscored the severity of the problem and prompted this recent action. The standards are set to take effect this October but FSIS will accept comments on the matter through December of 2004 “for the purpose of reviewing and evaluating the effectiveness of these approaches,” according to the agency.