CHICAGO (Reuters) — U.S. meat inspectors are set to toughen their poultry production standards in March in a bid to reduce food-borne illnesses, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The department plans to begin testing raw chicken parts for salmonella after an 18-month outbreak of the bacteria linked to Foster Poultry Farms ended last year. The outbreak sickened more than 600 people.
The USDA estimates that the new safety standards for sampling poultry for salmonella and campylobacter will prevent an average of 50,000 illnesses a year.
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Oversight of chicken parts, including breasts, legs and wings, is critical for food safety because they represent 80 percent of the chicken sold in the United States, public health officials said.
The government implemented standards to assess food safety for whole chickens in 1996 but said it has since found that salmonella levels increase as chicken is processed into parts.
“We are taking specific aim at making the poultry items that Americans most often purchase safer to eat,” U.S. agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack said in a statement.
Salmonella and campylobacter are among the most frequent causes of food-borne illness and can increase if raw poultry products are improperly stored at warm temperatures. Salmonella, which is common in chicken feces, feathers and other body parts, it can cause diarrhea, fever, vomiting and other ailments in humans.
Under USDA’s proposed measures, inspectors will routinely assess throughout the year whether companies are effectively addressing salmonella in poultry.
Currently, inspectors infrequently test samples at facilities on consecutive days.
“Getting more germs out of the chicken and turkey we eat is an important step in protecting people from food-borne illness,” said Robert Tauxe, deputy director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of Foodborne, Waterborne and Environmental Diseases.
