USDA to shift some inspector tasks to pork plant workers -- in everything but name
Source: Washington Post
USDA to shift some inspector tasks to pork plant workers — in everything but name
By Kimberly Kindy May 24 at 6:00 AM
At a Smithfield hog plant in central Illinois, federal meat inspectors examine pig carcasses on the slaughter line, remove diseased and contaminated meat, and mark it “condemned.” They have the exclusive responsibility for performing this work.
At another hog plant about 75 miles away, JBS USA Food Co. employees are part of a long-running test program in which they perform tasks similar to those done by federal inspectors. When plant employees do this food safety work, the U.S. Department of Agriculture says they are “sorting” and “removing” or “disposing” of the meat, not inspecting or condemning it.
The shift in language is central to the USDA’s efforts to make the most dramatic changes to federal meat-inspection policy since Congress passed a 1906 landmark law that seized control of food safety from plant owners and made it the province of federal inspectors.
The proposed new inspection system transfers some responsibilities that traditionally have been handled by USDA inspectors to employees of pork plants. The USDA says it has studied the new inspection system for 20 years and that pork products from the test plants are at least as safe as those produced by traditional inspection. They say federal inspectors will spend less time visually assessing pork and more time ensuring sanitary conditions are maintained throughout the plant.
Several food safety lawyers, Democratic members of Congress and a former agriculture official say that the USDA is using sleight-of-hand tactics to get around legal mandates that have been in place for more than a century. Those mandates require federal regulators to inspect — and either pass or condemn — every live hog that arrives at a slaughterhouse and every hog carcass on the slaughter line.
-snip-
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/usda-to-shift-some-inspector-tasks-to-pork-plant-workers--in-everything-but-name/2019/05/23/9808cc50-66af-11e9-82ba-fcfeff232e8f_story.html
______________________________________________________________________
What can possibly go wrong? After all, we trust JBS, don't we?
= new reply since forum marked as read
They’ll police themselves be a it’s not in their interest to sell faulty products.
