Billy Blasts Bad Meat Article

July 20, 2000

An article published last week by Scripps Howard News Service is based on "misinformation" and constitutes "irresponsible journalism," says Food Safety and Inspection Service Administrator Thomas Billy. The article, bylined by Lance Gay, claimed federal meat inspectors and consumer groups are protesting FSIS action to classify "tumors and open sores as aesthetic problems, which permits the meat to get the government's purple seal of approval as a wholesome food product."

Billy said it’s "absolutely false" that new rules designed for a pilot meat and poultry inspection program allow defective carcasses to be butchered for retail sale. "The notion that we are now allowing product to bear the mark of inspection that wasn’t permitted to bear the mark before is a plain misrepresentation of the facts."

The article quoted Wenonah Hauter, director of Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy Project. "I don't want to eat pus from a chicken that has pneumonia. I think it's gross," Hauter said. "Most Americans don't want to eat this sort of contamination in their meals." The article also said Delmer Jones, a federal food inspector for 41 years who lives in Renlap, AL, said he's "so revolted by the lowering of food wholesomeness standards that he doesn't buy meat at the supermarket anymore because he doesn't trust that it is safe to eat."

Within the pilot program, Billy said, FSIS has included food safety and "other consumer protection" types of defects "and set performance standards for them that plants must achieve. This does not mean that defects unacceptable under the traditional slaughter inspection system are now acceptable, as has been reported. The things we condemn under traditional slaughter inspection are the same things we condemn under the new system. Just as with the traditional system, FSIS provides continuous inspection under the pilot. The pilot also adds enhanced verification to ensure that these standards are met."

Plants have more responsibility under the new system, Billy added, "to ensure their operations are capable of meeting these standards. But it is still our job to inspect, to verify, and to decide what products have earned the mark of inspection. We are not standing on the sidelines watching others play the game."

The National Joint Council of Meat Inspection Locals, a union of 7,000 meat inspectors nationwide affiliated with the American Federation of Government Employees, is "battling related Agriculture Department plans to rely on scientific testing of samples of butchered meats to determine the wholesomeness of meat, rather than traditional item-by-item scrutiny by federal inspectors," Gay’s article said.

But Billy said preliminary data showed "the promising potential of the new system we have designed." For the seven poultry plants operating under the new system the Salmonella prevalence was 5.5%, Billy added. "This is significantly below the performance standard of 20% and below the prevalence achieved so far under HACCP (hazard analysis and critical control point system). It demonstrates that FSIS' strategy to improve food safety is working."

Billy did say that if a carcass shows a cancerous tumor that is localized and not systemic to the entire carcass, the tumor may be removed and the rest of the carcass processed for sale.