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This product "may contain feces".
It is the label that a consumer rights group is asking the government to require meat distributors to feed the food they send to grocery stores.
The recommendation is ironic, told CNN Deborah Press, a lawyer with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. The group represents 12,000 physicians whose mission includes the promotion of herbal diets and ethical scientific research.
But this raises real concerns in the PCRM about the US Department of Agriculture's food safety inspection system.
The US Department of Agriculture has a "zero tolerance policy for feces in meat and poultry," a spokeswoman told CNN.
The USDA said it was sending inspectors to facilities that were examining a "statistically valid sample of randomly selected carcasses throughout the production quarter."
If inspectors find faeces on an animal carcass, they ensure that contaminated meat can not enter the food supply, the USDA said. And if inspectors find repeated violations, FSIS applies "phased enforcement measures" against the meat company.
But the press said that the USDA's current inspection policy was not satisfactory enough because it only applied to "visible" feces on the chain. of production.
And the USDA has relaxed its rules on how fast poultry companies can treat birds. Previously, the requirement was 140 birds per minute, but has since been raised to 175 birds per minute.
This would mean that those who work on the line sweep around three birds per second. They are spinning at a pace that is difficult to understand for the naked eye.
Doctors are looking for answers
For at least six years, the PCRM has asked questions about the feces contained in the birds we eat daily.
Yesterday, the group filed suit in federal court in Washington, DC.
The question is important, first of all, for the obvious gross factor. "Nobody wants to eat faeces," the press said. But the situation is getting worse quickly: harmful microbes like E. coli are found in feces.
Despite their questions and follow-ups, they say that they do not get clear government responses on its food inspection procedures.
In 2013, PCRM sent a petition to the USDA to ask it to change its rules on faecal contamination and to remove the word "healthy" from the way it labeled and categorized foods that had made it. subject of an inspection.
The press said the term misleads the public.
PCRM tested the chicken products and found 48% positive faecal contamination tested. And the petition cited a Consumer Reports study that corroborated their evidence, concluding that "more than half of the raw meat and cracker packs tested positive for fecal bacteria."
The USDA has not responded to the petition.
In 2017, the PCRM filed an application under the Freedom of Information Act requesting "records regarding the number of USDA poultry inspectors, the detection rates of visible fecal contamination of poultry , the average speed of poultry sectors, the USDA poultry inspection rates and training in inspection.
Their lawsuit this week says that the USDA has violated the Freedom of Information Act by failing to meet FOIA's request for fecal contamination rates. Federal law requires agencies to respond to FOIA requests within 20 days of receipt, according to the Digital Media Law Project.
In a statement, a spokeswoman for the Department of Agriculture told CNN that the USDA could not comment on an ongoing dispute.
The requirement for "visible" faecal contamination hides what happens in the bowels of these chickens, says the PCRM.
In its legal complaint, the group quotes an unnamed federal inspector who spoke to them:
"We often see birds coming down with intestines still covered with faecal contamination," said the inspector. "There is no faecal contamination on the skin of the bird, however, we can do nothing to prevent this bird from descending into this line."
From there, the bird entered a large water tank called a cooling tank, where feces contained in the intestines can easily be washed away and deposited on other carcasses. birds in the tank. The inspector cited in the PCRM complaint said that this was sometimes called "faecal soup".
Hope of reform
The press said the complaint was facing a tough battle in the courts. But she was optimistic that a reform is possible.
"The jungle & # 39; she was released in 1904, "she said. At that time, there was no federal oversight "on food manufacturing, but Theodore Roosevelt, the then President, read the appalling novel that detailed the horrors of bankruptcy.
In 1906, Congress signed the Meat Inspection Act and the Clean Food and Drugs Act on Roosevelt's office.
The press hopes that, by detailing the flaws of the industry today, the PCRM can lobby for improved food security.
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