March 20, 2014

 

US Congress members oppose poultry inspection modernisation rule

 

 

At least 60 members of Congress added their names to a March 17 letter addressed to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack asking him to suspend action on the proposed Modernization of Poultry Slaughter Inspection rule.

 

The Modernization of Poultry Slaughter Inspection rule would allow company employees in most poultry slaughter plants to check eviscerated carcasses for visual defects such as bruising and sorting out those that are unlikely to pass federal inspection. A single federal inspector would be stationed at the end of the line, just before the chill tank, to conduct a final visual inspection. Additionally, plants would be permitted to run their evisceration lines at higher speeds than allowed by the existing inspection systems.

 

The Modernization of Poultry Slaughter Inspection rule builds on the hazard analysis and critical control points (HACCP)-based Inspection Models Programme (HIMP), a pilot programme that has been running at 20 plants since 1998. USDA said HIMP plants perform as well, or better than, other plants in terms of reducing contamination of poultry carcasses by pathogens.

 

But opponents of the new rule, including some members of Congress, have raised concerns that USDA hasn't given enough consideration to the rule's potential impact on food safety, worker safety and animal welfare, among other issues. In their letter to Vilsack, the members of Congress expressed grave concerns that the new rule could undermine food safety and animal welfare policies.

 

The signatories asked that the agency suspend the rule in order to address various concerns, including those raised by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) report from August 2013.

 

The GAO report found that the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) had "not thoroughly evaluated the performance of each of the three pilot projects" because of limitations in the analysis of data from chicken plants and a lack of report on the turkey plants.

 

The letter also noted a "connection between humane treatment and food safety". The rule would allow poultry slaughter companies to increase line speeds, but "faster line speeds also cause more birds to bypass backup slaughter devices and enter the scalding tank alive", the letter states.

 

However, in defence of the new poultry slaughter rule industry stakeholders have argued, for example, that faster line speeds wouldn't occur overnight - plants would need to install new systems to achieve the new maximum line speeds.

 

Additionally, the National Chicken Council and US Poultry & Egg Association have refuted claims that the new rule would jeopardise worker's safety.

 

In a written response to a draft of the GAO report, then-Undersecretary of Food Safety Elisabeth Hagen agreed with the recommendations and stated that when USDA issues the final rule, "FSIS will present the updated analyses, including the cost-benefit analysis, in a manner that will facilitate public understanding of the information used to support the rulemaking."

 

At the hearing, Vilsack said he believed "that professionals at FSIS are confident in saying that there has been an increase of compliance with safety standards, equal to or fewer product safety issues in those plants than the general plants that we have and the other processes that we use, and equal to and fewer worker safety issues in those plants based on the data."

 

He added that the programme would provide "more inspections offline where we know pathogens attach, it would require more verification of compliance with standard operating procedures and with HACCP requirements ... it would require new microbiological testing and record keeping that currently doesn't exist, and it would make strong recommendations relative to worker safety."

 

During the House hearing, Vilsack stated that, in terms of worker safety, there's a difference between line speed in inspection and processing.

 

"The processing, which is where the worker safety issues arise," are a function of equipment, facility layout, number of lines, flock conditions, and the number of employees involved, he said. "The rule would provide that, if there are compliance problems and process problems, that we would be able to shut the process down."

 

The letter also questioned whether FSIS has studied the impact of the proposed rule on humane slaughter of poultry and whether it fully consulted stakeholders on the proposal.