As FDA Halts Food Safety Inspections, Poultry Safety Standards Decline As Well
As the concern for company liability and employee safety during the Coronavirus continues to grow, companies are facing historic decisions on how to proceed. On March 18, 2020, The U.S Food and Drug Administration announced that they have “postponed all domestic routine surveillance facility inspections” with the exception of “mission-critical” cases, out of concern for the safety of inspection employees.
This is a dangerous time to be suspending such regulations, says food poisoning lawyer Ron Simon, who notes that other state-level food inspection standards are already being compromised due to the concern of the spread of Coronavirus. Specifically, he points out, a regulatory waiver which was recently granted to a large chicken factory in Washington by the FDA. “Chicken is so central to the fight against the spread of Salmonella, says Simon, who had filed thousands of Salmonella claims against food producers and manufacturers as a salmonella lawyer.
This regulatory waiver was granted to the Foster Farms chicken slaughter and processing factory in Kelso, Washington. The waiver allows for the increased speed of the slaughter line up to 175 birds per minute with only one trained FSIS inspector at the line. Tony Corbo, Senior Government Affairs Representative for Food & Water Watch, comments that “FSIS inspectors are putting themselves on the line working in dangerous conditions so that the rest of us can eat safe food during the COVID-19 outbreak. Now, their bosses are thanking them by making that line even more dangerous.” Previously, in 2012, the USDA advocated for HAACP-Based Inspection Models Project, a system which would transfer the liability of poultry inspection from USDA inspectors to factory workers, as well as for the increased speed of chicken lines.
According to the CDC, poultry is one of the leading causes of foodborne illness as it can harbor harmful bacteria such as Campylobacter and Salmonella. The decreased personnel for inspection and increased line speed, drastically decreases the assurance of consumer-safe poultry production and furthermore, places heavy liability on individual factory inspectors.
Ron Simon, a National Food Poisoning Lawyer comments on the FDA’s recent inspection halt, saying that “this is an unfortunate step, and hopefully temporary”, due only to the unparalleled challenge of the Coronavirus pandemic.
https://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/foods-linked-illness.html#poultry
https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/news/usda-using-covid-19-to-increase-chicken-slaughter-line-speeds
