Meat+Poultry - February 2017 - 14

WA S H I N G T O N

Food safety rollback?
way to get to that food safety goal. But
With the new Donald Trump
at least everyone agrees that the safety
Administration in office only a few
weeks, there don't seem to be any signs of American food is the goal. So despite
speculation that Donald Trump's
that the new president, his secretary
unorthodox approach to dealing with
of agriculture, the administrator of the
public issues points toward a massive
US Dept. of Agriculture's Food Safety
shakeup in food inspection, or how
and Inspection Service (FSIS), or the
the safety of American food is assured,
commissioner of the Food and Drug
there doesn't seem to be much evidence
Administration (FDA) have hatched
any major plans to roll back food safety that's going to happen - at least so far.
Fueling this speculation is the move by
or meat and poultry inspection.
the FDA toward being a tougher food
Of course, there's been a lot of
safety regulatory agency.
speculation about what President
For a long time, the FDA
Trump might do, especially
was the weak sister of
in the wake of the Obama
Trump has
the two food safety and
Administration. Some of
made comments
regulatory agencies.
this speculation has been
about reining
Inspection's been vastly
fueled by comments made
in "the FDA
different,
with USDA in
by the new president
food police."
poultry and meat plants
himself, hinting darkly
every day, and FDA in its
about rollbacks of regulatory
regulated plants and companies
overload, comments about reining
on a much less frequent basis. But
in "the FDA food police," and other
more recently, there have been
possible actions.
massive changes in the FDA regulatory
However, the safety of the food that
structure, with the passage of the Food
Americans eat seems to be something
Safety Modernization Act, and the
that the parties involved seem to agree
regulations implementing the act, which
on for the most part, whether we're
beef up FDA food inspection.
talking about the food processing
But analysts in the food industry,
industry, government regulators, or the
as well as others in the industry and
consumers who buy the food.
government, say it seems highly unlikely
Of course, there are differing views
that this major law and regulations
about how food should be made safe,
as well as disagreements about the best will be stripped away by the new
administration. This restructuring of the
food safety regulatory plan for a large
part of the food industry in the US has

great support in the industry, in Congress
and among American consumers.
One change already taking place was
the US Dept. of Justice involvement in
enforcement of food recalls under FDA.
Another direction regulatory agencies
are moving in is the use of whole
genome sequencing by both USDA and
FDA. They're using this process to find
foodborne pathogens and deal with
them more efficiently before they lead to
major outbreaks of illness.
On the FSIS side, many priorities are
already underway, including the revision
to poultry inspection to make it more
science based; controlling Salmonella
in poultry and meat products; the
discussion about making Salmonella
an adulterant in ground beef meant for
grinding; the pressure on retailers to
control Listeria in delis; and efforts
to stop or cut back the increasing
occurrences of foreign contamination
of meat and poultry products. None of
these priorities seem subject to cutback
or change by a decreasing regulatory
emphasis on food safety.
Traditionally, the agriculture
committees in the House and Senate
seem to operate on a more bipartisan
basis than many other committees in
Congress, possibly because they spend
at least some of their time on food
safety. It's hard to see these committees
or the leadership of USDA or FDA
changing course in this area.
B E R N A R D S H I R E | m e a t p o u l t r y @ s o s l a n d .c o m

There's been a lot of speculation about what
President Donald Trump might do.

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