Yasuhiro Kanzaka, president of Japanese barbecue restaurant chain Yakiniku-zakaya Ebisu fell on his sword and kissed the pavement at the company’s headquarters in Kanazawa in Ishikawa Prefecture on May 5, 2011.

This is of little comfort to the four dead and 70 sick from E. coli O111 in raw beef served at the restaurants which was never tested because, “We never had a positive result, so we assumed our meat would always be bacteria-free.”

In a supreme case of reactive rather than proactive food safety policy, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry said it will introduce stricter standards for the handling of raw meat and penalties for violators.

The ministry aims to quickly establish the standards in line with the Food Sanitation Law, and will seek advice from a food safety panel and other concerned bodies, ministry officials said Thursday.

Here’s the advice: don’t serve raw hamburger.

Oh, and authorities on Friday afternoon raided the corporate headquarters of Yakiniku-zakaya Ebisu and a wholesale distributor connected to the outbreak. They probably have those bacteria-vision googles.

At least 20 of the 70 sick are in critical condition.