Meat Inspection Pilot Program
Increases Plant Responsibility

WASHINGTON —(AP)— A government meat inspector's job has not changed for generations. All day long, inspectors sit in one place along a production line, poking each chicken or hog or cattle carcass passing by as they look for defects, stray feathers or hair, and telltale signs of contamination.

The U.S. Agriculture Department thinks that is a waste of time, so it is testing a new system in which plant employees do most of the hands-on examination — mostly looking for bruises and the like that have nothing to do with human health, officials say.

The idea is to free government inspectors so they can focus on potential hazards to human health such as salmonella and fecal contamination.

Equipped with two-way radios, department employees can start moving along the lines to ensure the machinery is working properly and can conduct more extensive sampling of the meat. Some inspectors also can check meat in warehouses and other distribution points.

The experimental system started Oct. 4 at a poultry plant in Alabama. Additional poultry and pork plants will be added in coming months.

``We clearly need to do something more effective, and the new system holds out some opportunity for that,'' said Carol Tucker Foreman, coordinator of the Safe Food Coalition, a consumer group. She oversaw the department's inspection program during the Carter administration.

``There is no downside. The public continues to have inspectors in the plant at all times, doing more to protect health than they were before the pilot project.''

Department inspectors are not so sure.

The American Federation of Government Employees, which represents 7000 inspectors, has sued the Agriculture Department, contending the Federal Meat Inspection Act of 1907 requires that the agency physically examine every meat and poultry carcass after it is slaughtered.

The union and other critics of the program say the department essentially is allowing companies to police themselves.

``Reducing public health standards and safeguards does not qualify as food safety reform,'' said Tom Devine, legal director of the Government Accountability Project, a whistleblowers group.

A federal judge refused last month to stop the pilot project, agreeing with the department that the law did not require inspectors to handle every carcass so long as they kept an eye on the meat. The union is appealing the decision.

The project is part of a prevention-oriented initiative by the Clinton administration that is putting more responsibility on processors to reduce food-related illnesses.

Companies are required to identify key points in the manufacturing and packing processes where food can be contaminated, and then adopt new procedures and get new equipment to prevent potential contamination.

An estimated 76 million people are sickened and 5000 die each year from food poisoning. That includes 1.4 million cases and 600 deaths from salmonella.

Thirty chicken, turkey and pork plants have agreed to be part of the program. An independent lab will test the meat before the new program is started and after it has been running for a while to determine whether contamination levels have been reduced. So far, no beef packers have volunteered.

The program can increase plants' expenses, but that is the cost of guaranteeing food safety, said Philip Clemens, president of Hatfield Quality Meats Inc., a Pennsylvania pork processor that volunteered for the program. ``Consumers both expect it and demand it,'' he said.

The project started off without a hitch at the Gold Kist Inc. poultry plant in Guntersville, Ala., said John Huie, the Agriculture Department's inspector-in-charge at the facility.

``It's allowed us to focus more on food safety and public health issues in the plant,'' said Huie, a veterinarian.

The plant, one of the most modern of 10 that Gold Kist operates, used to depend on the inspectors to find cosmetic defects, such as bile stains, or signs of poultry diseases that were of no danger to humans, he said. Now plant workers are doing that, he said.

``There was no incentive (for the company) to remove some of these quality defects. They would send every carcass and let us make a decision,'' he said.

The department has cut its staff at the plant from 18 to 12. The six inspectors were moved to other plants in the area where the department had vacancies.