[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 51 (Monday, May 1, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Page S3045]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      BUILDING CONSUMER CONFIDENCE

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, in 1968 the Congress of the United 
States passed the Wholesome Poultry Product Act of 1968.
  A former Congressman from Iowa by the name of Neal Smith--Members of 
the present Congress will remember--was a person who served the people 
of Iowa very well and spent a considerable amount of time during his 
years in Congress trying to build consumer confidence in poultry and 
other meats American consumers buy.
  In 1960, there were 1.8 billion chickens produced in the United 
States and consumed by the public. In 1998, it was up to 8 billion 
chickens. There has been a very dramatic rise in the consumption of 
chicken by the American consumer, all the more reason to make sure the 
Wholesome Poultry Products Act of 1968 is followed.

  There is a dismal picture painted about the inspection of poultry 
slaughterhouses in the United States and some question about whether 
the meat consumed by the American public is as wholesome as the 1968 
act intended. This question arises because of a proposal in the 
Department of Agriculture to shift some routine Federal inspection from 
Federal inspectors to inspectors hired by the poultry slaughtering 
companies. An article was in yesterday's Des Moines Register, by 
Register Washington reporter George Anthan, who has been reporting on 
the subject of wholesome inspection of meat by the Department of 
Agriculture for almost his entire journalistic career. George Anthan is 
very much an authority on both what was intended and the enforcement of 
that law.
  Rather than summarizing, I will read what was reported yesterday in 
the Des Moines Register by George Anthan.

       The Agriculture Department admits consumers may detest 
     chicken or turkey that contains pus from a pneumonia-like 
     disease called air sacculitis.
       But the condition fails to threaten human health, federal 
     officials say, and the issue of dealing with it can be left 
     largely to the employees of meat processing companies, rather 
     than to federal inspectors.
       The poultry condition is at the center of a dispute between 
     the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the union that 
     represents federal inspectors over how best to safeguard 
     America's meat.

  A former Iowa Congressman, Neal Smith, says, ``I suppose you could 
sterilize pus and maybe it would not hurt you . . . but the fact is, we 
should not be eating that kind of stuff.''
  Continuing the article:

       The Department of Agriculture is implementing a new 
     inspection system that assigns many of the more routine 
     duties now handled by federal inspectors to the companies 
     they regulate. The inspectors, in turn, are supposed to look 
     for systemic problems to prevent disease outbreaks before 
     they happen.
       But the union maintains the change breaks a sacred trust 
     with American consumers, who see the Department of 
     Agriculture approval as proof that an independent inspector 
     has signed off on the meat they put on their dining room 
     tables.
       The controversy revolves around the Wholesome Poultry 
     Products Act of 1968.
       Smith said he ``carefully and deliberately'' included the 
     word ``wholesome'' in the law's title because ``people don't 
     want to eat pus, and scabs, sores and malignant tumors.''
       Officials at the Department of Agriculture's Food Safety 
     and Inspection Service said that even though inspecting birds 
     for air sacculitis will be the responsibility of the poultry 
     companies, federal inspectors will monitor the process.

  Parenthetically, the question for the consumers in America is whether 
or not they can be satisfied that their food is safe because there is 
some Federal inspector monitoring it as opposed to Federal inspectors 
actually inspecting it.
  Continuing the article:
       They said if the inspectors determine birds with air 
     sacculitis and other defects that don't affect human health 
     are being passed for human consumption, they will notify 
     companies, who are supposed to take corrective actions. ``The 
     only thing an inspector could do under the new system is 
     inform the plant that something is going wrong,'' said 
     Felicia Nestor, a food safety specialist at the Government 
     Accountability Project, a group that supports government 
     whistle-blowers.
       ``They have no club, especially over the products that 
     already have gone out the door,'' Nestor said. The Department 
     of Agriculture's office of the Inspector General recently 
     interviewed federal inspectors at a Gold Kist, Inc., chicken 
     processing plant at Guntersville, Ala., where the inspection 
     system is being tested.
       According to the inspector general's March 3 report, 
     federal inspectors at the plant said that before the system 
     was installed ``the inspectors were removing bad products 
     from the lines.''
       After the new system was implemented, government food 
     inspectors ``were told to stop removing products from the 
     lines,'' according to the report.
       Spot checks of the Guntersville plant found nine of 60 
     birds with air sacculitis on Feb. 5 and 20 of 70 birds on 
     Feb. 7. The bad birds had not been removed by company 
     employes ``who had taken the place of (Department of 
     Agriculture) line inspectors,'' the report said.
       Air sacculitis can fill a bird's respiratory system, body 
     cavity and hollow avian bones with pus and bacteria.
       While the controversy over air sacculitis involves mainly 
     questions about the wholesomeness of pus-filled chickens and 
     turkeys, the disease also was linked to human health problems 
     at a recent meeting of a Department of Agriculture advisory 
     committee on implementing the new inspection system.
       Daniel Lafontaine of Columbia, S.C., a veterinarian 
     representing the American Veterinary Medicine Association, 
     said he told agriculture officials at the meeting that 
     ``birds that have air sacculitis may be a wholesomeness issue 
     today and a day or two later these birds may be septicemic.''
       After the blood stream has been invaded by virulent 
     microorganisms, a chicken or turkey ``is not safe for human 
     consumption,'' said the South Carolina state meat and poultry 
     inspection system.
       Even if cooked properly, he said, ``pus can get pretty 
     gross. You sure don't want to eat it.''
       Kenneth Petersen, senior program manager in the Department 
     of Agriculture's food inspection service, said birds with 
     severe air sacculitis are supposed to be condemned by company 
     employees.
       If monitoring federal inspectors determine through twice 
     daily checks that they aren't, the firms involved can be 
     cited for failing to meet food safety standards, he said.
       Under the new inspection system, as under traditional 
     systems in which federal inspectors examine each carcass, 
     birds with less serious cases of air sacculitis can be 
     ``reworked'' by either cutting away pus-filled air sacs and 
     other tissues or by using a vacuum device to remove the 
     material, Petersen said.
       ``We recognize that wholesomeness issues are also important 
     and we check for them,'' Petersen said. ``But our emphasis is 
     on those things that may cause an ailment. So, we are seeking 
     an appropriate balance.''

  I ask the consumers of America to be aware, as they buy chicken and 
turkey, of whether or not the wholesomeness act of 1968 is being 
followed by the Congress of the United States.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho.
  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I inquire where we are. Are we in morning 
business?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. We are in morning business.

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