Safe Food_ Bacteria, Biotechnology, and Bioterrorism - Marion Nestle [47]
In 1988, the USDA and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)—in a rare moment of unity—appointed a joint committee to advise the agencies on how best to keep microbial pathogens out of the food supply. Like previous committees dealing with this problem, this one extolled the virtues of HACCP and provided detailed instructions about how to proceed with such plans. By the late 1980s, health officials understood HACCP to be the most sensible and scientifically grounded approach to reducing the risk of microbial food poisoning, but the regulated industry strongly opposed it.13
USDA TRIES “DISCRETIONARY” INSPECTIONS, 1986–1989
Despite the almost complete unanimity among scientists that properly developed HACCP plans could reduce pathogens, neither the industry nor federal agencies nor Congress promoted the idea. Instead, Congress passed a law in 1986 ostensibly designed to focus USDA inspection efforts where they were most needed. The law eliminated requirements for daily on-site inspections of meat-processing plants and gave the USDA the discretion to decide how often plants had to be inspected. This meant that the department could reduce the frequency of certain inspections. As part of the discretionary plan, the USDA proposed to “streamline” its inspection system by delegating some of the duties to the meat processors themselves (as would be done under HACCP).14 The department tried out a preliminary version of this program in 1987 and 1988. Although this pilot study identified some problems, the USDA decided to expand discretionary inspection nationwide.
At this point, both consumer and industry groups charged that the USDA was deliberately choosing to ignore problems with discretionary inspection. Congress held hearings to review such complaints. At the hearings, meat inspectors raised vehement objections. With a graphic description worthy of Lafcadio Hearn or Upton Sinclair, Delmer Jones, the president of the inspectors’ union, explained why his group believed that daily visual inspections of meat plants must continue. The problem, he said, is
no control by industry of product that falls on the floor. . . . Product becomes a sponge when it falls to the floor. Many of the products are ready to eat. The problem . . . is because of chemical residues, fecal contamination, abscesses; the employees spit on the floor, blow their nose on the floor; they go in the bathrooms and track it back out into the plant and whatever they tracked into the plant, that is what you eat in cold cuts when you place that meat on a sandwich.
According to Mr. Jones, meat packers have a “stronger commitment to make money than to take care of sanitation and public health concerns.” For this reason, he said, more visual inspection was needed, not less.12
Thomas Devine, the legal director of a government group that protects the rights of meat inspectors who blow the whistle on safety violations, raised yet another issue: harassment. In this early warning of the increasingly violent opposition of the meat industry to USDA safety requirements, Mr. Devine told the Congressional committee:
The political climate is such that the special interest groups supporting the meat and poultry industry have won and now they have the ears of Washington. . . . The height of this program is an industry honor system . . . but I would like to tell you why we can’t live with it because of what it will do to the plant employees who want to be whistle-blowers. They will be fired on the spot. . . . In fact, the bad news is so severe that plant management at some companies verbally and physically harass even the Federal inspectors. They have reported physical beatings that required hospitalization, death threats, letting the air out of their tires, chasing one