Finding a lack of standing, a D.C. federal court has dismissed Food & Water Watch’s lawsuit alleging that the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) New Poultry Inspection System (NPIS) is inconsistent with the Poultry Products Inspection Act (PPIA), which requires USDA to ensure that poultry products are wholesome, unadulterated and properly marked, labeled and packaged. Food & Water Watch v. Vilsack, No. 14-1547 (D.D.C., order entered February 9, 2015). The NPIS reduces the number of USDA inspectors at the slaughter line of poultry production facilities, “freeing up [USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service] resources to conduct offline inspection activities that are more important for food safety, such as verifying compliance with sanitation and [other] requirements, or conducting Food Safety Assessments.” Food & Water Watch challenged the NPIS as consumers of poultry, arguing that the USDA inspection label indicated to them that a federal employee had inspected the poultry and that…
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Iowa State University Assistant Professor Austin Stewart has developed a virtual reality world that he says could be used to convince caged chickens that they are in a free-range environment. Stewart’s project, Second Livestock, envisions round skyscrapers filled with chickens wearing virtual-reality headsets and standing on omnidirectional treadmills. If implemented early in a chicken’s life, a chicken would believe that it is outside, Stewart suggests, and raising chickens in confinement could become more humane. While Stewart admits that his plan would be far too expensive to implement right now, “I had to show that this technology is plausible,” he said. See Ames Tribune, May 10, 2014. Issue 524
A California appeals court has affirmed the dismissal of Proposition 65 (Prop. 65) lawsuits filed against fast-food restaurants by the vegetarian and animal-rights advocacy organization Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), finding that the organization failed to conduct the requisite investigation into the warning signs posted in the defendants’ restaurants before certifying the merit of its 60-day notices to the companies, attorney general and local prosecuting entities. PCRM v. Applebee’s Int’l, Inc., No. B243908 (Cal. Ct. App., decided February 27, 2014). At issue were warnings about the chemical PhIP, known to the state to cause cancer, created during the chicken grilling process. Details about the lower court’s ruling appear in Issue 450 of this Update. Reciting the lengthy litigation history, which involved a number of amended complaints, the court emphasized the statements that the plaintiff’s counsel made during hearings on demurrers to the pleadings and deemed them binding admissions that…
Represented by animal rights organization Compassion over Killing, a California resident has filed a putative statewide class action against the Kroger Co., alleging that it misleads consumers by labeling its store-brand chicken products as “sourced from chickens raised ‘cage free in a humane environment,’” when the company’s “Simple Truth” chickens “are treated no differently than other mass-produced chickens on the market.” Ortega v. The Kroger Co., No. BC536034 (Cal. Super. Ct., Los Angeles Cty., filed February 11, 2014). Plaintiff Anna Ortega claims that she purchased the company’s chicken products, sourced from Perdue, relying on the package representations and paid a premium for them, averaging 41 percent more than comparable products. The complaint outlines the industry standards that Perdue and other chicken processors follow, detailing how they fail to prevent pain, disease and injury from birth to slaughter for a significant number of birds. According to the complaint, Kroger and Perdue…
A recent Alternet.org article titled “23 Gallons a Day from One Cow? Industrial Agriculture Engaged in Extreme Breeding,” has questioned the longstanding practice of selectively breeding livestock to produce animals that are highly efficient and productive. While acknowledging that “breeding animals to exaggerate traits humans find useful is hardly new,” author Jill Richardson claims that industrial agriculture has taken the practice to new extremes that compromise the ability of animals to live natural lives. “Some of these changes are a result of growth hormones, lighting, feed, and (for dairy cows) more frequent milkings,” she writes, “but a lot of t is breeding and industrial agriculture has taken it to an extreme … [A] look at the variety of chicken breeds kept by small farms, hobbyists, nd backyard chicken owners shows just how much humans have successfully meddled in chicken genetics. You can find chickens adapted to iving in hot weather…
A federal court in Australia has determined that processors advertising their chickens as “free to roam” on packaging and in advertisements and publications were liable to mislead the public as to the nature and characteristics of the product. Australian Competition & Consumer Comm’n v. Turi Foods Pty. Ltd., (No. 4) [2013] FCA 665 (Fed. Ct. of Austl., decided July 8, 2013). The court’s opinion details the efforts undertaken to determine stocking densities at various stages of a chicken’s development and includes the results of site visits by the court, support staff and the parties’ legal representatives. At certain times in their development, according to the court, thousands of chickens live in such close proximity in the sheds that “very little, if any, of the floor surface could be seen.” Thus, the court ruled that the “impugned statements . . . were apt to mislead and deceive and were false insofar…
California Assembly Member Ian Calderon (D-Whittier) has introduced a bill (A.B. 682) that “would prohibit chicken or turkey sold in any state-owned or state-leased building at food concessions and cafeterias from being ‘plumped’ in any way.” The legislation defines “plumped” poultry as any such product injected with “saltwater, chicken stock, seaweed extract, or some combination thereof… to increase its weight and price.” “The practice of ‘plumping’ chicken or turkey can increase the sodium content by up to 500 percent,” states the bill, which would take effect January 1, 2014, or upon the expiration of existing vending and concession contracts. “Fresh, natural chicken should have no more than 70 mg of sodium per four ounce serving, whereas plumped chicken can contain up to 400 mg sodium. The average household of four people, because of ‘plumping’ chicken or turkey, spends approximately $127 per year on saltwater.”
A World Trade Organization (WTO) panel has determined that the United States has violated its trade obligations by refusing to allow Chinese chicken parts into the U.S. market, an action that was apparently taken in a 2009 federal spending bill that denied the use of any U.S. Department of Agriculture funding to establish or implement any measure that would allow the importation. The law extended a five-year U.S. ban on Chinese chicken that was imposed during a bird flu outbreak. While the WTO can sanction countries that violate trade rules, this could take several years because the United States has the option to appeal the verdict. According to a news source, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has indicated that the restrictions were temporary and are due to expire soon. See USA Today, September 29, 2010.
A California appellate court has reversed a summary judgment order that terminated litigation involving claims that chain restaurants violated Proposition 65 (Prop. 65) by selling grilled chicken products to consumers without appropriate warnings about carcinogens created by the cooking process. Physicians Comm. for Responsible Med. v. McDonald’s Corp., No. B218089 (Cal. Ct. App., decided August 12, 2010). The carcinogens at issue are polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and PhIP (2-amino-1-methyl-6-phenylimidazol[4,5-b]pyridine). The trial court had dismissed the claims in late 2008 finding that the proposed warnings, which mentioned “well cooked,” “thoroughly cooked” and “grilled” chicken, were barred by conflict preemption because they would frustrate the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) “longstanding policy of promoting the safe cooking of chicken” under the federal Poultry Products Inspection Act (PPIA). The court agreed with the defendants that the warnings would have frightened consumers from properly cooking chicken. The trial court dismissed the claims again in June 2009…
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has announced a trade agreement with Russia that ends a January 2010 ban on chlorine-treated poultry from the United States. In exchange for lifting the ban, USDA has pledged to post on its website information about “which disinfectants/pathogen reductions treatments are known to be approved by Russia for use on processing poultry and on food generally.” U.S. officials will also provide (i) “information . . . on the solutions that companies use on poultry shipped to Russia,” and (ii) “an updated list of poultry processing facilities authorized to ship poultry to Russia.” The accord came after 25 senators reportedly urged President Barack Obama (D) to take up the issue with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. “I am pleased that after several months of negotiations, we have finally reached a breakthrough which will allow for U.S. poultry exports to resume to this important market,” stated U.S.…
