Sweeping poultry changes proposed

The US Department of Agriculture on Friday proposed sweeping changes in the way chicken and turkey meat is processed that are intended to reduce illnesses from food contamination but could require meat companies to make extensive changes to their operations.

Despite decades of efforts to try and reduce illnesses caused by salmonella in food, more than one million people are sickened every year and nearly a fourth of those cases come from turkey and chicken meat.

As it stands, consumers bear much of the responsibility for avoiding illness from raw poultry by handling it carefully in the kitchen – following the usual advice to not wash raw chicken or turkey (it spreads the bacteria), using separate utensils when preparing meat and cooking to 165 degrees. The USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service wants to do something about it by starting with the farmers that raise the birds and following through the processing plant where the meat is made.

Their food poisoning target: Of the more than 2,500 salmonella serotypes, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has identified three that cause a third of all human illnesses from chicken and turkey products. The agency proposes limiting the presence of these on poultry products.

The USDA estimates the total yearly cost for foodborne salmonella infections in the US at US$4.1 billion, which includes the cost of doctor and hospital visits, recovery and premature deaths.

In 1994, the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service took a similar step by declaring some strains of E. coli, a contaminant in ground beef, and launched a testing programme for the pathogen which has significantly reduced illnesses from the meat.

In an effort to curtail salmonella outbreaks in poultry, the agency is proposing a regulatory framework that would include testing incoming flocks of chickens and turkeys for the bacterial disease that commonly affects the intestinal tract and affects 1.3 million people annually with symptoms that may include diarrhoea, nausea and vomiting and which could last for several days. Officials hope testing chickens and turkeys before they enter the slaughterhouse will encourage farmers to adopt practices that reduce the bacterial infection on the birds before they reach the point of meat processing.

A second measure would require enhanced monitoring for salmonella during processing by adopting sampling for the bacteria at multiple stages inside the processing facility.

The third major change would be to establish a maximum level of bacterial contamination allowed and possibly limiting the three specific types of salmonella that can make people sick. Meat that would exceed the limits or that would contain the types of salmonella prohibited could be withheld from the market.

AP