 991246 USDA Seen Appealing Supreme Beef Safety CaseDecember 17, 1999 Washington - The U.S. government will soon appeal a Texas court ruling that blocked USDA from effectively closing a meat plant that flunked food safety tests. Several consumer groups, including the American Association of Retired People and the American Public Health Association, have pressed the USDA to challenge the ruling in a federal circuit court of appeals. The lawsuit has been closely watched as an important test of whether the USDA can require a company to comply with tests for salmonella and other deadly bacteria. An appeal could be filed as soon as Friday, knowledgeable sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Last week, U.S. Judge Joe Fish ruled that the USDA could not withdraw its federal meat inspectors from a ground beef plant operated by Supreme Beef Processing Inc because the plant failed three separate sets of tests. Under federal law, all meat and poultry sold across state lines must be inspected for safety and stamped with a USDA mark of approval. The withdrawal of inspectors effectively forces a plant to close. “This case is so important to how the USDA regulates meat and poultry safety for consumers,” said a source with a consumer activist group. “If they cannot shut a plant down for failing salmonella tests, there will be a tremendous loss of consumer confidence in how USDA regulates safety.” Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman was scheduled to meet with several consumer groups on Friday morning to discuss the Supreme Beef case, sources said. Supreme Beef maintains that its products are safe, and the USDA salmonella tests are arbitrary and unfair. Salmonella can cause diarrhea in healthy adults, but can be deadly for young children, the elderly and others with weak immune systems. Last year, some 600 Americans died from salmonella out of an estimated 1.4 million illnesses, according to federal health data. An underlying issue in the case is the USDA's 1996 broad revamping of what U.S. slaughter and processing plants must do to ensure meat and poultry are safe for consumers. The changes ordered plants to adopt a series of food safety checkpoints, and included tests for salmonella contamination to verify that controls were working.
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