New call for US to overhaul meat safety laws

Russia's bans US meat over standards for antibiotic residues and processing should be a cue for the US to overhaul its meat safety laws.

Moscow has banned pork from all but six US processing plants over antibiotics, and imports of US poultry were blocked as of January 1 over concerns of the routine use of chlorine rinses in US plants to kill pathogens that cause food poisoning.

The US government and industry officials said the bans were protectionist and that US meat is safe.

However, US lawmaker Louise Slaughter wants Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to revisit laws for meat production and processing. She said the bans should be a wakeup call that the US can no longer continue to count on exporting livestock of dubious safety to other countries.

Slaughter and the late Senator Edward Kennedy introduced a bill in March that would ban farmers from using common antibiotics unless livestock are sick because of the concern that excessive use could lead to new strains of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Livestock groups said the ban would raise their costs and that there is no evidence that the use of antibiotics in livestock has led to the increase in antibiotic resistance.