GAO discovered
that USDA did not fully calibrate and disclose its data concerning faster line
speeds at plants, which poultry and meat industry stakeholders argue increase
output while ensuring safe production.
“As a result,”
GAO writes, “the public…did not have complete and accurate information to
inform their comments on the proposed rule and provide them with a clearer
understanding of the potential impacts of the final rule, including uncertainty
behind selected estimates.”
GAO found USDA
used two years of pilot data, rather than the complete decade’s worth, to
determine that the pilot inspection program could offer “equivalent, if not
better, levels of food safety and quality than currently provided at plants not
in the pilot project.”
GAO also reports
that USDA misused data from poultry plants to create rules for young turkey
facilities.
Additionally,
GAO finds that the agriculture department’s cost benefit analysis was based on
limited data. The department, for example, did not disclose that it gathered no
cost information from turkey plants in the pilot project, even as it purported
to make accurate estimates about the cost of the wider program.
The pilot, which
began in young chicken, turkey and hog plants in 1998 as part of a wider effort
to improve the country’s food safety regime, is meant to identify “critical
control points,” during which inspectors can both thoroughly inspect and
expedite the slaughter process.
Sen. Kirsten
Gillibrand, D-N.Y., commissioned the report, and wrote Office of Information
and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) Administrator Howard Shlanski today to ask the
“proposed rule to modify poultry inspection does not move forward until further
action is taken to protect food safety.”
In a response
penned by Under Secretary for Food Safety Elizabeth Hagen, USDA and its Food
Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) said they would update their analyses and
continue to move toward a final rule to modernize poultry slaughter inspection.
In a statement
released today, American Meat Institute’s Senior Director of Worker Safety J.
Dan McCausland said his industry always complies with USDA safety regulations.
He also stressed
that increased and possibly dangerous line speeds are not in the meat sector’s
“best interests.”
“‘Miscuts’ are
very expensive and injuries to workers are precisely what we work to avoid
every day,” he said.
The National
Chicken Council also said it is fully committed to food safety, and
acknowledged that FSIS says it will fix the issues discovered by the
report before issuing a final rule.
Ashley Peterson,
NCC’s vice president of scientific and regulatory affairs, also reiterated the
poultry industry’s belief in the reformed slaughter system.
“In an effort to
continue our progress towards reducing foodborne illnesses, we believe that the
poultry inspection system should be modernized to transition to a model that is
more science and risk-based, from one that was implemented in 1957,” she said.
#30
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