Posted May 29, 2014
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is accused of failing to protect consumers by allowing the sale of meat that contains drug-resistant strains of salmonella, according to an article on NBC News by Jonel Aleccia available here. Chicago Tribune also published an article here, USA Today here, and the LA Times here. USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) released an action plan targeting salmonella in a previous blog post available here.
The Center for Science in Public Interest (CSPI) filed the complaint in U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia to force the USDA to treat antibiotic-resistant strains of salmonella as adulterants, which prevents the sale and distribution of tainted meat.
USDA officials declined to comment on the court filing Wednesday.
The government bans the sale of adulterated meat and poultry for human consumption; however, the sale of meat products containing salmonella is allowed, because the pathogen is not designated as an adulterant, according to the Chicago Tribune.
In May 2011, CPSI petitioned USDA to stop these sales stating that there were 168 illnesses, 47 hospitalizations, and one death caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria in 2011 alone.
“USDA takes action only after people start becoming ill from these life-threatening antibiotic-resistant superbugs,” said CSPI Food Safety Director, Caroline Smith DeWaal, in a statement on NBC News. “It is time for USDA to declare these dangerous resistant strains as adulterants and then require industry to conduct aggressive testing to keep meat and poultry contaminated with these strains out of the food supply, as it does with dangerous strains of E. coli.”
The Center for Disease Control (CDC) reported 50 more illnesses in an outbreak of seven strains of drug-resistant salmonella tied to Foster Farms chicken parts. Since March 2013, 574 have been sickened in the outbreaks, 40 percent of those were hospitalized, according to NBC News. Over 700 people have fallen ill by the two outbreaks since 2012, according to LA Times.
Three-fourths of victims, who were able to provide the CDC with brand information, said they had consumed chicken produced by Foster Farms prior to becoming ill, according to USA Today.
Several new measures have been put in place including tighter screening of birds before purchasing, improved safety on the farms where birds are raised, and better sanitation in its plants. The company suggested that the recent cases were due to the warmer months, said Foster Farms in a statement.
Salmonella sickens about 1 million Americans each year, according to the CDC.
For more information on this issue, the case is Center for Science in the Public Interest v. Vilsack et al, U.S. District Court, District of Columbia, No. 14-00895.
For more information on food safety, please visit the National Agricultural Law Center’s website here.
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