The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) today released a Salmonella Action Plan to curb levels of the pathogen in meat and poultry products, one of its top food safety priorities in light of the 1.3 million illnesses linked to Salmonella each year.
A centerpiece of the plan is a strategy that would modernize and streamline federal food safety inspections at poultry processing plants by freeing up inspectors to spend less time on visual inspection of carcasses and more time on exploring other safety issues at the facilities.
Salmonella is a top cause of foodborne illness, and the federal government's new strategy comes amid a Salmonella Heidelberg outbreak linked to two Foster Farms poultry production facilities in California that has so far sickened 389 patients in 23 states.
"Far too many American are sickened by Salmonella every year. The aggressive and comprehensive steps detailed in the Salmonella Action Plan will protect consumers by making meat and poultry products safer," said Elisabeth Hagen, MD, undersecretary for food safety, in a press release from the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS).
In mid November Hagen announced that she will resign from the USDA in the middle of December. She has worked for nearly 4 years as USDA undersecretary,
The FSIS estimates that the plan's steps to modernize the poultry slaughter inspection system could prevent at least 5,000 illnesses each year.
Controversy around the plan
Today's action plan announcement caps working group efforts that have been under way since 2011. The announcement of the proposed steps for streamlining poultry processing inspections has drawn criticism from consumer and union groups. They have aired concerns about data the FSIS used to justify the performance of a pilot program that tested the new system at poultry plants and the safety consequences of increased production line speeds under the new system.
In September the Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report that said the USDA cut corners in evaluating the poultry inspection part of the plan, but added that it appears to gives plants more flexibility and responsibility for ensuring food safety and inspectors more opportunities to focus on other additional food safety activities.
The GAO report triggered a response from FSIS head Alfred Almanza, who wrote in a Food Safety News editorial that the agency was already working on the GAO's two recommendations and that the GAO authors seemed to overlook the FSIS's food safety rationale for advancing the plan.
Steps for poultry, pork safety
Other features of the plan are aimed at giving inspectors more information to identify possible food safety problems, such as details about a plant's performance history. Other items on the 10-step plan include ensuring that sampling activities are in line with foodborne illness trends, considering modification of how FSIS posts poultry facilities on Salmonella performance lists, completing risk assessments for comminuted poultry products and poultry parts, exploring the role of lymph nodes in Salmonella contamination, and gathering more information on preharvest contamination.
Some of the steps also touch on pork production. For example, one is aimed at decreasing sanitary dressing problems in hog slaughter establishments and possibly developing performance standards for hog carcass and pork product sampling programs.
Another of the plan's steps would order new approaches for providing Salmonella-related food safety information to consumers, such as adding more detailed explanations for recommendations or practices.
CSPI response
In response to today's FSIS announcement, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) released a statement from its senior food safety attorney, Sarah Klein, who said the FSIS Salmonella Action Plan makes some important improvements that allow it to respond more nimbly and gather more useful data.
She addeed, however, that the plan ignores the critical issue of antibiotic-resistant Salmonella. CSPI has petitioned the agency to add antibiotic-resistant Salmonella as adulterants.
Klein also said the FSIS should go further and test each poultry and beef plant weekly for Salmonella. "This would increase consumer protection, as it would give FSIS real-time data on plant performance and allow the agency to take prompt action if a plant veers off course," she said in the statement.
See also:
Dec 4 FSIS press release
Sep 4 CIDRAP News story "GAO: USDA took shortcuts in poultry inspection plan"
Sep 6 CIDRAP News scan "FSIS head rebuts GAO report on poultry inspections"
Dec 4 CSPI statement
