Source: Michael Fielding, MEATINGPLACE, 6/26/14


USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is maintaining its position on the implementation of its Salmonella Action Plan,in light of Wednesday's introduction of legislation that would give the agency the authority to recall any product contaminated with salmonella and campylobacter.

On Wednessday, Congresswomen Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) introduced the bill, essentially forcing the issue nearly one month after a consumer health advocacy group filed a lawsuit alleging inaction by the USDA on a petition to declare antibiotic-resistant salmonella as an adulterant.

"We appreciate the Congresswomen's ongoing efforts on our shared goal of ensuring food safety standards continue to be stringent, effective, and constantly improving,” according to an emailed statement to Meatingplace by an FSIS spokesperson. “FSIS will continue to work aggressively in preventing foodborne illness, including implementing the first ever performance standards for Salmonella in chicken parts and ground poultry later this year."

The Salmonella Action Plan, released in December 2013, outlines several actions FSIS will take to drive innovations that will lower Salmonella contamination rates, including establishing new performance standards and developing new strategies for inspection and throughout the full farm-to-table continuum.

The chicken industry was more blunt in its reaction to the bill.
"This bill would provide none of the certainty its sponsors promise and would not help FSIS in any of its foodborne illness investigations. Rather, the bill would redefine long-agreed upon standards for determining whether product is adulterated to include ambiguous and scientifically unsound criteria," Ashley Peterson, vice president of scientific and regulatory affairs for the National Chicken Council, said in a news release emailed to Meatingplace.

She argued that certain microorganisms would not always be considered adulterants under the bill, "depending on whether they fit vague, undefined criteria that have nothing to do with actual public health risks. The bill would waste valuable public resources chasing constantly changing microorganism strains, and processors would never know what standards they are supposed to meet," she said.

The Pathogens Reduction and Testing Reform Act is backed by Food and Water Watch and Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), which in May sued the federal agency to compel USDA to act on a petition filed in May 2011 urging it to deem antibiotic-resistant salmonella as an adulterant in ground beef and poultry – a move that would widen its powers in prompting recalls and preventing contaminated product from entering the marketplace.

"CSPI believes USDA can act now to declare dangerous strains of antibiotic-resistant Salmonella to be adulterants," CSPI Food Safety Director Caroline Smith DeWaal, said in a news release. "But since the agency claims it doesn't have that authority, the legislation introduced today would remove any shadow of a doubt, and keep these particularly dangerous strains of bacteria out of the food supply."

The bill is in part a reaction to an outbreak of antibiotic-resistant Salmonella Heidelberg traced back to chicken produced by Foster Farms that since March 2013 has sickened about 600 people, many of whom were hospitalized.

In 2011, USDA strengthened the performance standards for salmonella in poultry with a goal of reducing illnesses by 20,000 per year. Through the Salmonella Initiative Program, plants are now using processing techniques designed to directly reduce salmonella in raw meat and poultry. Currently, salmonella rates in young chickens have dropped by more than 75 percent since 2006, according to USDA.

"No legislation or regulation can keep bacteria from existing. What will make salmonella disappear is science, research and breaking the chain of salmonella at every stage of production from the breeder farm to the processing plant. Coupled with proper handling and cooking to 165 degrees Fahrenheit, chicken is safe to eat 100 percent of the time," Peterson added.

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