It is legal for the meat to have traces of fecal matter. A group of doctors will change it

It is the label that a Consumer Rights Group wants the government to demand meat distributors put on the food they send out to grocery stores.

The recommendation is heavy, Deborah Press, a lawyer for the Medical Committee for Responsible Medicine, says CNN. The group represents 12,000 doctors, whose mission includes promoting plant-based diets and ethical scientific research.

But there are real concerns about PCRM's about the US Department of Agriculture Food Safety Inspection System.

The US Department of Agriculture has a "zero tolerance policy for fecal material on meat and poultry", a spokeswoman told CNN.

The USDA said that inspectors are being sent to facilities looking at a "statistically valid selection of bodies randomly chosen during the production shift."

If the inspectors find fecal material on an animal hook, they ensure that contaminated meat cannot enter the food supply, the USDA said. And if inspectors observe repeated violations, FSIS uses "progressive enforcement actions" against the meat company.

But Press says the USDA's current inspection policy is not good enough because it only applies to fecal material that is "visible" on the production line.

And the USDA has relaxed its rules on how quickly poultry farms can treat birds. The requirement used to be 1[ads1]40 birds per minute, but has since been increased to 175 birds per minute.

That would mean that those working on the line scan around three birds per second. They are swirling with a speed that is difficult for the naked eye to understand.

Doctors looking for answers

For at least six years, PCRM has asked whether fecal matter contained in the birds we eat every day.

Yesterday, the Group filed a lawsuit in a federal district court in Washington, DC.

The question applies primarily to the obvious gross factor. "No one wants to eat stools," says Press. But it gets faster quickly: harmful microbes like E. coli is found in fecal mats.

Despite their questions and follow-up, they say that they do not receive direct response from the government on food inspection procedures.

In 2013, PCRM sent a petition to the USDA and requested that it change its fecal pollution rules and remove the word "healthy" from the way it labels and categorizes food as is a previous inspection.

Press said the term mislead the public.

PCRM tested chicken products, and found 48% tested positive fecal contamination. And the petition cited a Consumer Reports study that confirmed its evidence and found that "more than half of the raw meat and patties were tested positive for fecal bacteria."

USDA did not respond to the petition.

In 2017, PCRM filed a request for freedom of information law to inquire about "USDA poultry inspector records, detection levels of visible fecal pollution in poultry, average spring line speed, USDA poultry check rate, and inspection training." [19659008] Their lawsuit this week says the USDA violated the Law of Freedom by not responding to the FOIA request for fecal pollution rates. Federal law requires agencies to respond to FOIA requests within 20 days of receiving the Agency, according to the Digital Media Law Project.

In a statement, a spokeswoman for the Department of Agriculture told CNN that the USDA cannot comment on pending litigation.

The requirement of "visible" fecal contamination similar to what happens in the intestines of these chicks, says PCRM.

In their legal complaint, the group mentions a named federal inspector who spoke to them:

"We often see birds walking down the line with the gut still attached, which is full of fecal pollution," the inspector said. "If there is no fecal contamination on the bird's skin, however, we cannot do anything to stop the bird from going down that line."

From there, the bird came into a large water water called the chill tank, where the faecal matter in the intestines can easily wash out and settle on other bird bodies in the tank. The inspector quoted in PCRM's legal complaint said that this is sometimes called "fecal soup."

The hope of reform

Press said the complaint is facing an uphill in court. But she was optimistic that the reform was possible.

"The Jungle" came out in 1904, "she said." At that time, there was no federal supervision "of food production. But Theodore Roosevelt, the president of that time, reads the muckracking novel that sets the horrors of the meat pack content. He demanded action.

In 1906, Congress laid the meat inspection law and clean food and drug law on Roosevelt's desk for its signature.

Press hopes that by detailing the industry's faults today, PCRM can press for improvements in food safety. [19659034]

Source link