The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) has proposed new traceback measures to better control and prevent pathogens from triggering foodborne illnesses and outbreaks. Particularly concerned with meat contaminated with Escherichia coli (E. coli), FSIS plans to “move quickly to identify the supplier of the product and any processors who received contaminated product from the supplier, once confirmation is received.” FSIS, which has provided industry guidelines on the matter, requests comments by July 6, 2012. See FSIS Press Release, May 2, 2012; Federal Register, May 7, 2012. FSIS has also issued a proposed rule that would remove the food preservatives sodium benzoate, sodium propionate and benzoic acid from a list of substances prohibited for use in meat or poultry products. Under the proposal, the Food and Drug Administration would continue to approve new safety uses of these substances in meat or poultry products while FSIS would approve them for…
Category Archives Department of Agriculture
California Senator Ted Lieu (D-Torrance) has sent a May 3, 2012, letter to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) Food Safety and Inspection Service, asking the agency to investigate the restaurant industry’s use of transglutaminase or “meat glue” to allegedly bind together “disparate parts of meat products to form a larger piece of meat.” Citing unnamed media reports, Lieu claims that caterers and other facilities sometimes use transglutaminase to combine meat scraps into whole steaks, which are then sold as more expensive cuts like filet mignon. According to the letter, this practice not only deceives customers who believe they have purchased a higher quality product, but purportedly poses a health risk insofar as “reformed” steak may contain contaminated meat that is not thoroughly cooked or served rare. “I respectfully request the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service to thoroughly investigate the industry’s use of meat glue, the possible dangers posed…
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has issued a statement confirming that its Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service identified a case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in a dairy cow from central California. According to the April 24, 2012, news release, the cow presented with an atypical type of BSE “not generally associated with an animal consuming infected feed” and was never destined for human consumption. “The United States has had longstanding interlocking safeguards to protect human and animal health against BSE,” said USDA Chief Veterinary Officer John Clifford, adding that milk does not transmit BSE. “For public health, these measures include the USDA ban on specified risk materials, or SRMs, from the food supply. SRMs are parts of the animals that are most likely to contain the BSE agent if it is present in the animal. USDA also bans all nonambulatory (sometimes called ‘downer’) cattle from entering the…
A New Mexico rancher has reportedly petitioned the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to operate the first horse slaughterhouse since the ban for such operations was lifted in November 2011. Since 2006, the federal government has essentially blocked horse slaughterhouses because Congress did not fund their legally required USDA inspections. Those inspections, however, were approved by lawmakers in last year’s agricultural spending bill. According to a news source, Rick De Los Santos, part-owner of Valley Meat Co. in Roswell, plans to slaughter 20 to 25 horses a day and export the meat to Mexico for human consumption. He asserts that more than 100,000 American horses are shipped to slaughterhouses in Mexico and Canada, with some of the meat exported to Europe and Asia. “Everyone who’s ever eaten tacos in Mexico, I guarantee you they’ve eaten horse meat down there,” De Los Santos said. “It would never be my intention to…
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently announced the expansion of its Quality Monitoring Program to include extra virgin and organic extra virgin olive oil. According to an April 3, 2012, post on the USDA blog, the program hopes to address questions raised in the last few years about olive oil quality and provide consumers with assurance that the products they purchase meet grade standards. Under the program, which already evaluates other commodities such as canned, frozen and fresh fruits and vegetables, the Agricultural Marketing Service will verify “olive oil quality and purity using criteria based on the U.S. grade standards . . . and international criteria,” as well as conduct “unannounced plant visits to review product processes, quality assurance measures, and recordkeeping systems.” Products from the first program participant, Baltimore-based Pompeian, Inc., have reportedly met “chemical testing and flavor analysis requirements” and the company has agreed to additional site inspections.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has issued a 66-page proposed rule that would update import rules for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). The topic was discussed in Issue 427 of this Update. Current U.S. trade rules prohibit beef imports from countries that have outbreaks or high risks of BSE, commonly known as mad cow disease. Under the proposal, APHIS would adopt criteria used by the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) that identify a country’s BSE risks as negligible, controlled or undetermined. Basing its import policy for a particular country on that country’s risk classification, APHIS would also conduct its own assessment, such as when a country is not yet classified by the OIE for BSE risk and requests APHIS to conduct a risk evaluation using OIE criteria. Countries would be considered an undetermined BSE risk unless officially recognized as negligible or controlled. Calling…
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has issued a March 2012 report urging the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to adopt several measures to reduce Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) in cattle before they are slaughtered. According to GAO, USDA currently recognizes bacteriophages, probiotics, vaccines, and sodium chlorate as preslaughter interventions able to control STEC, but has received few applications for commercial products that use these methods. The report notes that even in the case of STEC vaccines, USDA’s requirements for approval are “unclear” and do not address “some of the unique challenges faced by manufacturers of animal health products.” GAO found that, unlike the Canadian Centre for Veterinary Biologics, USDA fails to specify when it requires laboratory or field demonstrations of vaccine efficacy, resulting in delayed application approval. There is also apparently a lack of available products designed to test for six STEC strains—other than STEC O157:H7—that are now considered…
Based on documents obtained from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) under the Freedom of Information Act, Food & Water Watch has urged the agency not to expand its pilot HACCP-based inspection project, contending that inspections conducted by poultry processing plant employees miss many defects. While USDA hopes to expand the program, claiming it will save the federal government $90 million and eliminate more than 800 inspector positions over three years, Food & Water Watch asserts that consumer health would be compromised by any such expansion. According to the consumer watchdog, USDA’s pilot project, launched in 1998 and involving two dozen slaughter facilities, relies on untrained plant employees to inspect carcasses for food safety and other consumer protection issues. Many of the pilot plants have apparently been granted line speed waivers and have sped up their lines to 200 birds per minute. In plants where USDA inspectors still conduct conventional…
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) Foreign Agriculture Service recently issued a Global Agricultural Information Network (GAIN) report concluding that a French proposal to prohibit all food packaging and materials containing bisphenol A (BPA) would “very likely… impact and jeopardize U.S. processed and other food exports to France.” Introduced after a French National Agency for Food Safety and Occupational and Environmental Health report questioned BPA’s safety, the legislation apparently reflects “strong political pressure from environmental and consumers’ groups,” as well as public distrust of the regulatory system following “the mad cow scandal, the Mediator diabetes drug scandal and even the PIP breast implant scandal.” As a result, the French food industry has evidently expressed concern that a BPA ban is unavoidable “in a short to medium term” even if the current bill is challenged at the EU level. The GAIN report warns U.S. companies that the proposed measure would require…
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has published its semiannual regulatory agenda outlining measures currently under development for 2012. Among the agenda items are proposed revisions to the rules that govern “certain genetically engineered organisms [GMOs] in order to bring the regulations into alignment with provisions of the Plant Protection Act.” Billed as the first comprehensive review of these regulations since 1987, the undertaking would apparently take into account the agency’s accumulated rulemaking experience as well as “advances in genetic science and technology.” USDA thus anticipates that any rule changes will affect “persons involved with the importation, interstate movement, or release into the environment of genetically engineered plants and certain other [GMOs].” In addition, the agenda includes modifications to the rules governing the importation of livestock and poultry at risk of transmitting bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) or highly pathogenic avian influenza. In particular, USDA has suggested (i) amending BSE regulations…
