photo: picsfive
In what seems to be a double whammy to consumer safety, the Obama administration first allowed the passage of a bill that criminalized the activity of whisteblowers or reporters speaking out on the conditions of poultry or animal farms, and now is poised to reduce the amount of inspection and oversight of the poultry industry by a significant amount.
Until now, all large operation that slaughter poultry have four FDA certified inspectors that oversee the kill lines, where the birds are first killed and prepped for further cutting and packaging.
Under the new plan, each slaughterhouse will have only one inspector will oversee the kill lines, and the amount of birds processed will go from 140 birds per minute as was the previous limit, to 170 birds per minute.
The measure in truth, will benefit the slaughterhouse in no small measure. The cost of stopping the lines for inspection will be greatly reduced. But what about consumer safety?
Food safety and workers unions have fought the initiative last year to no avail.
Of course, the administration bypassed whatever assessment or delay there was to the bill, by citing new budget constraints as the major factor in the adoption of the new rules, which will take effect on September 2014, which purportedly will enable the FDA to save money, by using less inspectors and allow the poultry industry to be [more] profitable."
In fact, the FDA will save 90 million dollars in the three years after the new plan is in action. And a lot of inspectors will be fired. The poultry industry in turn, will be able to increase profit to the tune of 256.6 million dollars per year.
The USDA actually contends that the new plan will increase product safety. That is an argument hard to make, when already almost 40% of all slaughtered poultry is already contaminated by bacteria that are for the most part antibiotic resistant.
What the USDA is trying to sell is the improved safety feature of the plan, although how that would come about is unclear.
Not only but such visual inspection would be mainly the responsibility of the employees, and they would be the one to make the decision to remove a chicken from the line.
As far as pathogen inspections, the plants would only be responsible for a 'reprocessing' or dousing all the carcasses with a weak chlorine solution or other antimicrobial agents.
The sole inspector then, would really only be responsible for selecting 20 to 80 birds per shift for closer inspection. considering the rate of 170 birds per minute, that is a minute fraction of the shift load, which could reach 10,000 carcasses.
Sceptics have their work cut out for them. In fact even before the plan is enacted, the majority of defects, up to 90%, involve fecal contamination missed by employees.
The other untold consequence of the new plan, is that it would force workers to slash the birds with sharp knives in repetitive motions at a much faster rate.
OSHA for their part, has no power to protect line workers. USDA has line rules, but they are not for the protection of workers.
Even now, almost 6% of workers in poultry plants are injured each year, and that's 50% higher than the national average.
Then again, the conditions of workers at poultry and meat plants is already known to be dismal, with intimidation playing a large role in hushing any protest or whisteblowing. And most of the people working in the plants are undocumented aliens who are threatened with deportation.
Once again, big business wins, little man loses.
Partial source: Mother Jones 4.24.13
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