Meat Processing Rollbacks Threaten to Increase Food Borne Illness
To keep the U.S meat supply from bottoming out during the pandemic shutdown, the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced regulatory rollbacks, expediting meat production. FSIS granted a beef processing plant and 11 poultry plants permission to use higher line speeds. These rollbacks enable chicken processors to slaughter up to 175 birds a minute, or 3 per second, whereas previous line speeds were set at 140 birds a minute. Previous regulations also required a minimum of 4 inspectors at each line, but now only 1 inspector per line is required, even with increased line speeds. Data analysis from the Guardian shows that at least 1 in 10 U.S. poultry slaughterhouses failed government salmonella tests last year. Rates of failure have also reached as a high as 34% in some categories. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), efforts to reduce salmonella outbreaks have largely been unsuccessful, with a 9% rise in the incidence rate over the last three years. Some analysts fear that increased line speeds, fewer government inspectors, and the recent rise in salmonella outbreaks could mean a longer-term reduction in the safety of the U.S. meat supply.
