GAO recommends stronger food safety performance measures

The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) yesterday issued a series of recommendations to enhance the US Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service's (FSIS's) ability to prevent Salmonella and Campylobacter contamination of poultry products. The report is dated Sep 30.

The GAO reviewed FSIS progress data since 2006, when poultry inspection standards were tightened, along with case reports from five Salmonella and Campylobacter outbreaks and interviews with agriculture officials and members of 11 industry, consumer, and government stakeholder groups.

The report commended FSIS for its efforts to reduce bacterial contamination of poultry over the past 8 years but described how the USDA's lack of performance measures and limited data on compliance represent severe hurdles to protecting the public from foodborne illness.

The GAO presented a series of recommendations to reduce Salmonella and Campylobacter contamination of chicken and turkey products. Recommendations include developing performance measures for food processing plants' compliance with food safety goals, developing consistent FSIS standards for ground chicken and turkey, and tracking effectiveness of farms' adoption of and compliance with safety measures.

Salmonella and Campylobacter infections cause an estimated 2 million human illnesses each year, the report said.
Oct 20 GAO report highlights
Oct 20 full GAO report

Report says US meat inspection procedures out of date

To better protect public health in the United States, a broader, data-driven effort is needed to update the US meat and poultry inspection system overseen by the USDA, say the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) in a recent report.

The document, titled "Meat and Poultry Inspection 2.0," coincided with the effective date of the USDA's Modernization of Poultry Slaughter Inspection rule. The new report says current inspection techniques are out of date, focusing as they historically have on making sure animals at slaughter are healthy. "US inspections still rely on methods developed a century ago, primarily visual examination of animals and carcasses," says a summary of the report.

Instead, say Pew and the CSPI, attention should be on the myriad sources of contamination, particularly microbial hazards such as Salmonella, Campylobacter, and Shiga toxin–producing Escherichia coli that are so prevalent today. Robust data collection, analysis, and sharing are fundamental to bringing US inspection methods into the modern, risk-based, and science-based era, they state.

Specifically, recommendations are for the United States to evaluate its existing meat inspection approaches and alternatives through commissioned scientific assessments, to enhance data collection through analyses of production and testing results and real-time data sharing, and to evaluate the incorporation of food chain information and comprehensive data management and review into it meat and poultry inspection system.

The new report's recommendations stem from an examination of modernized inspection efforts and approaches in five countries—Australia, Denmark, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and Sweden—plus efforts put forth by the European Food Safety Authority to modernize meat inspection.
Oct 17 Pew/CSPI report
Oct 17 Pew summary of report
Aug 21, 2014, Modernization of Poultry Slaughter Inspection rule