Testimony of Wenonah Hauter

Executive Director of Food & Water Watch

Presented before the Senate Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations

My name is Wenonah Hauter.  I am the Executive Director of Food & Water Watch, a non-profit consumer organization.  We welcome this opportunity to present our views on the FY 2007 Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill.

USDA – Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS)

The Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is proposing a shift to a risk-based inspection system.  We have the following concerns about this proposal:

1.    The Agency lacks the statutory authority to execute a risk-based inspection scheme that would require less than daily inspection.  According to both the Federal Meat Inspection Act (21 U.S.C. 603) and the Poultry Inspection Act  (21 U.S.C. 455), the United States Department of Agriculture is required to provide continuous inspection in all establishments that produce meat and poultry products that enter the food supply.

Furthermore, the FSIS’ own glossary defines continuous inspection as:

Continuous Inspection

USDA’s meat and poultry inspection system is often called “continuous” because no animal destined for human food may be slaughtered or dressed unless an inspector is present to examine it before slaughter (antemortem inspection), and its carcass and parts after slaughter (postmortem inspection). In processing plants, as opposed to slaughter plants, inspectors need not be present at all times, but they do visit at least once daily. Processing inspection is also considered continuous.

2.    Risk-based inspection needs to have a reliable database upon which to make judgments about which meat and poultry plants meet or exceed performance standards.  At the present time, there are problems with the data collection within the Food Safety and Inspection Service.  The USDA Inspector General, in a November 2004 audit report, stated the following about the Performance Based Inspection System (PBIS) database:

Due to the lack of controls noted during our audit, FSIS cannot be assured that PBIS data is complete, accurate, and reliable.  As a result, FSIS management may not have the information it needs to effectively manage its inspection activities.  Without effective controls over data integrity, the PBIS system may be an unreliable repository that gives FSIS management a false sense that inspection activities are adequately carried out and sanitation of plant operations is accurately reported.

3.    The Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP) inspection system still has problems.  The authority of inspectors to prevent adulterated products from entering the food supply has been severely hampered.  Company HACCP plans do not require pre-approval from FSIS before they are implemented.   Under HACCP, inspectors have been relegated to verifying whether company-written HACCP plans are being followed.  Even when FSIS issues directives to companies to reassess their HACCP plans to take into account new food safety policies (e.g., the 2002 directive requiring companies to deal with E. coli 0157:H7 as an adulterant likely to occur in beef processing), companies often take long periods of time to implement the new policy.

4.    The HACCP-Based Inspection Models Project (HIMP) in poultry slaughter still has fewer than two dozen plants participating in the program. The Government Accountability Office issued the last comprehensive analysis of this project in December 2001 and pointed out a number of serious problems.   Inspectors assigned to these plants report that they are not able to perform food safety functions because they are assigned to stationary positions on the slaughter lines (e.g., they are not able to look inside the cavity of poultry carcasses where there may be contamination).  Furthermore, defects that are considered to be “other consumer protection,” such as blemishes, scabs, tumors, feathers, and bruises, and would not pass muster in processing plants using conventional inspection techniques are being permitted to enter commerce under the HIMP system.  We do not believe that they Agency is prepared to extend this inspection model to the entire poultry industry at this time.  There should be a thorough examination of the HIMP project before it is expanded.

Because there has not been a full evaluation of HIMP recently, we filed a Freedom of Information Act request on December 14, 2005 requesting certain documents so that we could conduct our own study.  FSIS responded that they wanted us to pay more than $10,000 for the information.  We have since scaled back the request, and yet they are still requesting the exorbitant sum of $2,858 for the records.  We are a non-profit consumer group and we do have access to such large sums of money.  Furthermore, we believe that this information should be available at no cost to requesters since the agency is proposing to expand this pilot project that will radically change our inspection system in slaughter establishments.  We believe that Congress should request full disclosure of this information.

5.  In January 2006, the USDA Inspector General released an audit report entitled, "Food Safety and Inspection Service Assessment of the Equivalence of the Canadian Inspection System" (Report No. 24601-05-Hy).  The report indicates that Canada was continually exporting meat and poultry products to the United States that had been subject to less than daily inspection -- in violation of U.S. standards.  While those responsible for enforcing our equivalency agreements at FSIS recommended taking disciplinary action against Canada for their repeated violations, they were overruled by the Secretary in 2004.  We find this most troubling.  FSIS has repeatedly testified before Congress that countries that wish to export their meat and poultry products to the United States must maintain inspection standards that are identical to those for domestic producers.  Yet, in this instance, USDA has chosen to look the other way.

While Canada has agreed to institute daily inspection in those establishments that export to the United States, we have learned that FSIS has been in discussions with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) to establish a pilot project with a subset of Canadian plants that would be able to export products that have been subject to less than daily inspection. This pilot program is being created without the benefit of congressional input or discussion through rulemaking.  We believe that instituting such a pilot project would be a violation of the Federal Meat Inspection Act (FMIA) and the Federal Poultry Products Inspection Act (FPPIA) and it should be stopped before it is implemented.

We have also learned that Australia is in the process of considering a "trial" of its controversial Meat Safety Enhancement Program (MSEP) for a beef processor that would like to export its products to the United States.  MSEP is a privatized inspection system for beef for which there is no comparable system here in the United States.  MSEP trials were last conducted in 1999, but were stopped since the inspection system raised consumer concerns both here in the United States and in Europe.  We can only surmise that someone at USDA has signaled to Australia that we would accept beef products produced under a privatized inspection system.

We view both the Canadian pilot project and the Australian MSEP trial as vehicles by the current USDA policymakers to institute backdoor changes to our inspection system through our international trading partners.  Congress has already had to step in to warn USDA on changing the programs authorized under the 2002 Farm Security and Rural Development Act through the Doha round of WTO negotiations; it may be time for Congress to send another shot across the bow to prevent the undermining of the FMIA and FPPIA through international discussions that have not had the benefit of congressional or public scrutiny.

For all of these reasons, we do not believe that the Agency is prepared to make radical changes to the current inspection system, no matter what terms they use to describe it.  The concept of “continuous” government inspection has been the core of our meat inspection system for 100 years, and the Agency should not be permitted to abandon this principle.

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Food & Water Watch submitted similar testimony to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, FDA, and Related Agencies.