The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service has not tested for Yersinia in its baseline assessments, which aim to provide a broad picture of contamination levels across the entire sector.
According to documents posted online, the agency planned to include the pathogen in its 2010-11 baseline study for pork, but ended up not testing for it. A spokesperson for FSIS said Yersinia wasn’t included because the available testing methods “were not reliable for detaching pathogenic serotypes and genotypes of [Yersinia].”
According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s “Bad Bug Book,” Yersinia enterocolitica can be presumptively identified in 36 to 48 hours, but confirmation can take 14 to 21 days. Determining pathogenicity is “more complex,” but the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service and many other labs do have methods for doing so.