Value of vaccinating hens for egg safety still undecided

In the wake of the country's largest ever egg recall the Food and Drug Administration has said the salmonella outbreak could have been avoided if new food safety rules were enacted earlier. Now some industry officials wonder if the food safety rules are enough since FDA declined to mandate vaccinating hens against salmonella as part of the rules, William Neuman of The New York Times reports. The vaccinations helped eliminate a salmonella outbreak in England over a decade ago.

American regulators said there was not enough evidence to conclude the vaccinations would prevent people from getting sick. Mandatory vaccinations would cost less than a penny per dozen eggs, Neuman writes. The new rules, which FDA said could have averted the outbreak, "include regular testing for contamination, cleanliness standards for henhouses and refrigeration requirements, all of which experts say are necessary," Neuman writes. FDA said the new rules do encourage farmers to use vaccinations if they believe it will help prevent salmonella infections.

The vaccines "are the only thing I’m aware of that really controls the problem from the inside out, at the source,” Ronald Plylar, the former president of a company that developed an early salmonella vaccine, told Neuman. Several industry officials told Neuman they believed the recall would force producers to begin vaccinating hens. While FDA said it considered mandating vaccinations very seriously, "We didn’t believe that, based on the data we had, there was sufficient scientific evidence for us to require it,” Dr. Nega Beru, director of the agency’s Office of Food Safety, told Neuman. (Read more)