Meat, poultry contaminated with traces of fecal matter, lawsuit against claims of the USDA

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) is being sued by a nonprofit medical association that claimed the government agency was not properly regulating fecal contamination of meat and chicken production.

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine filed a lawsuit Tuesday in US District Court in Washington, DC, USA Today reported.

"Although the USDA enforces a" zero tolerance "policy for faecal contamination, this policy only applies to" visible faecal contamination, "the lawsuit says. "The result is that fecally contaminated meat and chicken products pass the inspection provided their feces are not visible to the naked eye."

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The 12,000-member Physicians Committee, whose mission is "to save and improve human and animal life through herbal diets and ethical and effective scientific research," asked the USDA, in 2013, to become acquainted with the regulations in force regarding faecal contamination.

The organization argued in its 2013 petition that the USDA regulations on faecal contamination are not sufficient. He also proposed to the agency to label the meat and poultry inspected with the following warning: "May contain feces".

The petition follows a 2011 study by an organization that reportedly found fecal matter in 48% of analyzed poultry products from 10 US cities, according to USA Today.

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The ongoing lawsuit asks for a "substantive response" to the petition and alleges that the situation has worsened since the 2011 study, reports the point of sale.

However, the USDA has stated that it "disapproves of the underlying assumption that meat and poultry products bearing the inspection mark may be contaminated by chemicals." fecal matter, "the Washington Post reported.

Officials at the government agency said at the point of sale that pathogen detection tests were also taking place to avoid fecal contamination that is invisible to the human eye. The agency also said that other pathogens can be killed by cooking the meat properly.

According to information provided by the North American Meat Institute, the bacteria in the raw products are normal and do not automatically mean that the product is contaminated with faeces. He says that "all bacteria, whether they are pathogenic or not, are destroyed by cooking."