[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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