Washington - The incidence of salmonella is decreasing in the nation's chicken, beef and pork supplies, the Agriculture Department says, despite criticism from government inspectors that the food inspection system is not working.
In a nine-month progress report on the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point program, the department said salmonella had decreased by 50% in chicken. The report found that 20% of chicken carcasses tested positive for the bacteria before the program, known as HACCP, compared with 10.7% under HACCP.
For pork, there was a drop of more than 25% with 8.7% of swine testing positive before the new system and 6.2% afterwards. With ground beef, 7.5% tested positive before and 4.3% afterwards -- a decline of more than 40%.
“The system really does improve food safety,” said Catherine Woteki, USDA's undersecretary for food safety.
The hazard analysis program was put into use last year by 300 of the largest processing plants. Nearly 3,000 smaller plants begin implementing it on Monday. The smallest plants will join the system next year.
With institution of HACCP, plants replaced the longtime system of poking carcasses for visual signs of disease with a method that involves checking meat throughout the food production system for such things as fecal contamination and proper temperature.
“For almost 100 years neither law nor regulation required meat and poultry companies to produce clean, safe products. We've come a long way,” said Carol Tucker Foreman, coordinator for the Safe Food Coalition.
But government inspectors say problems remain. They say the agency wants to phase out inspectors and allow the industry mostly to regulate itself. At a news conference Wednesday, they complained of being powerless to stop problems with meat, including an instance of meat tainted with diesel fuel.
Thomas Billy, administrator of USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service, said there are no plans to eliminate the inspectors. But the agency is seeking ways to move some inspectors from the plant and into other areas of the food chain such as distribution warehouses.
Billy said the goal is to make “a net improvement in food safety while at the same time maintaining the other consumer protections.”
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