Regarding 'The Economic Efficiency of Sampling Size: The Case of Beef Trim'

摘要

Ferrier and Buzby are to be commended for advancing efforts to integrate risk assessment and cost-benefit analysis and for presenting a framework for the economic design of microbiological food safety sampling. Microbiological food safety sampling has often been based on conventions that reflect generally accepted practices established over 30 years ago. Therefore, the focus of their research represents a welcome advance in the design of effective food safety measures. However, the model developed by Ferrier and Buzby to identify the economically efficient sample size for lot acceptance sampling of beef trim for E. coli O157:H7 suffers from a number of errors that render the results unreliable.