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November 9, 2000

Another USDA Bait and Switch Scheme:

Statement on USDA's Policy Change on Listeria Testing

Statement by:
Felicia Nestor, Government Accountability Project
Wenonah Hauter, Public Citizen
Rod Leonard, Community Nutrition Institute

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) claims to be seriously tackling food safety issues. But, their actions speak louder than words. Rather than strengthening food safety protections, the agency is again responding to pressure from the powerful meat industry by canceling government microbial testing in plants that choose to perform such tests themselves.

This is ironic since just this summer, USDA's own Office of Inspector General criticized the Department's new inspection approach for reducing "oversight beyond what was prudent and necessary for the protection of the consumer," and specifically for inadequately monitoring industry microbial testing.

Despite these criticisms, USDA announced last week that manufacturers of ready-to-eat (RTE) products such as hotdogs and deli meats, may have their own employees test for listeria, instead of having products tested by trained and objective federal government inspectors. The listeria pathogen may contaminate meat products through sloppy manufacturing practices, and ready-to-eat products are a major source of the foodborne illness, listeriosis, associated with such contamination. Listeriosis is estimated to kill 500 Americans and sicken 2,000 more per year. Symptoms in non-fatal cases may include high fever and nausea, and miscarriage in pregnant women.

In addition to self-testing, meat processing plants are not expected to hold products until test results come back, as currently happens when USDA meat inspectors are in charge of testing. Instead, meat will be sent out into the marketplace before the company knows if it is contaminated. Consumers will not be protected by the inevitable company recalls, which are voluntary under current policy, because only a fraction of contaminated products are typically recovered.

The long-term consequences for consumers are enormous because we lose the potential for meaningful, scientific, protections at the point when this is finally becoming a possibility. New methods of testing for bacteria, which will deliver immediate results, are being developed and will soon be available for use. Government inspectors will soon be able to detect microbial contamination on the spot, and prevent dangerous products from being shipped to consumers.

But, instead of maintaining government testing and requiring the industry to maintain a high level of cleanliness, the USDA is abdicating responsibility for scientific testing and allowing industry to use irradiation to cover its bad meat processing practices. It is no coincidence that the food industry is currently pushing the Food and Drug Administration to expedite their approval of irradiation for ready-to-eat food. Irradiation is being used as a replacement for meaningful government inspection and testing.

Not long ago, USDA promoted its new inspection system by claiming that it would free inspectors from sight and smell examinations so they could do more scientific testing to protect consumers; now they say that inspectors will be pulled from scientific testing to do more checking of company paperwork. This especially cynical application of regulatory 'bait and switch' puts consumers even more at risk from an industry honor system and should be rejected.