Washington - The National Joint Council of Food Inspection Locals, the union representing inspectors, said the government's new Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) program too often lets the meat industry regulate itself and forces inspectors to sit on the sidelines.
“That's like saying you should yank the referees from the football field,” said Tom Devine, legal director for Government Accountability Project, a law firm for government whistleblowers.
(INSIGHTS NOTE: Inspectors are currently in a dispute with the government about transfers to smaller meat plants as a result of implementation of HACCP programs in larger and medium sized plants. Historically, when inspectors have a beef with the government, they use the media to charge that food will be safer if USDA just hires more inspectors. Inspectors have opposed advancements in scientific inspection techniques because of the possible impact on their jobs. With this in mind, please read on.)
Janet Riley, spokeswoman for the American Meat Institute, defended the industry, saying laws are still in place to allow inspectors to take action.
“We still feel like there's lots of inspector presence and lots of involvement and enforcement going on in our plants,” Riley said. “There is no incentive for us to do anything but make the safest meat possible.”
Beth Gaston, a spokeswoman for USDA's food safety and inspection service, agreed. “Inspectors have the same authority under HACCP as under past inspection methods,” Gaston said. But she said the agency was taking the allegations seriously. “Our policy is very clear. Unsafe or unwholesome meat or poultry should not be passed and should not receive the marks of inspection.”
The agency last year began implementing its new program in the country's 300 largest processing plants. This week, nearly 3000 smaller plants were scheduled to begin the program.
The agency planned a news conference to tout successes in the first year of the program -- known as HACCP -- which involves checking meat throughout the food production system for such things as fecal contamination and proper temperature. Before the program was implemented, plant workers only poked at carcasses to search visually for signs of disease.
The government has said that early figures show the HACCP program is making headway. They say that during the first six months after the law took effect, the incidence of salmonella in chickens dropped by almost half to 10.4 percent. Salmonella prevalence in swine carcasses dropped from 8.7 percent to 5.5 percent, statistics show.
But inspectors alleged that some plants don't have enough checkpoints to ensure safe meat. They also allege that the government is not allowing them to enforce the law and pull problem meat from the assembly line.
Instead, the meat is returned to the plants where it is legal to reprocess, using procedures such as heating and cooking, until it no longer poses a danger, said Felicia Nester, food safety director for the Government Accountability Project.
That meat can be reused in a ready-to-eat form, Nester said.
The inspectors said they fear the government eventually will phase out the role of inspectors, opting for a system where monitors make infrequent visits to check on plants. They hope to convince Congress to hold hearings.
Sewell said that twice in the last three months she has identified meat with problems, only to be told by her supervisors to return it to the company to handle.
“In the past, we would have condemned that carcass as being unfit for human consumption,” she said.
During inspections at a poultry plant in Georgia, Sewell said she found evidence of diesel fuel from processing equipment on meat as well as shards of metal. Once she said a product with maggots was returned to the plant and the workers were allowed to reprocess it and ship it back out.
Meat Industry Insights News Service
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Phone: 631-757-4010
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