Food Safety Intro

We are Hannah and Ashley, Junior Block students who are digging a little deeper into the current event topic of Food Safety, more specifically Meat Production.  Food Safety is a process in which food is handled, prepared and stored in order to prevent food borne illness.  Food safety in general including meat production includes a number of routines that have to be followed to avoid any potential for severe health hazards.

When it comes to food safety, it is regulated by many different federal, state, and local officials.  There are 15 agencies sharing oversight responsibilities in the food safety system, although the two primary agencies are the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), which is responsible for the safety of meat, poultry, and processed egg products, and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which is responsible for virtually all other foods.Regulatory agencies at all levels of government in the United States use the FDA Food Code to develop or update food safety rules in their jurisdictions that are consistent with national food regulatory policy.  The Food Safety and Inspection Service has the responsibility of administering and enforcing the Federal Meat Inspection Act, the Poultry Products Inspection Act, the Egg Products Inspection Act, portions of the Agricultural Marketing Act, the Humane Slaughtering Act, and the regulations that implement these laws. FSIS inspection program workers inspect every animal before slaughter, and each carcass after slaughter to ensure that the public health requirements are met.  On January 4th, 2011, President Obama signed The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) into law which enables the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to better protect public health by strengthening the food safety system. It allows FDA to focus more on preventing food safety problems, rather than reacting to problems after they occur.

But here is where things get a little complicated...

The United States Department of Agriculture, also known as the USDA intends to create a new nationwide poultry inspection procedures that will cut the number of government inspectors, turn over a large number of safety inspection duties to the factory workers, expand the use of chemicals and increase line speeds.  This will not only put almost one thousand people out of work but could possible create numerous health risks.  More information about this topic can be found at The Washington Times.

I' am Hannah and I believe that this new nationwide poultry inspection procedure that could possible be put into use is a very bad idea that could harm the people of the United States.  I feel as though this new switch to factory responsibility of food safety is a means to save money by cutting workers and not a means of creating a better food safety inspection process.  The increase in line speeds will only cause more problems for this new inspection procedure.  If the lines increase speeds it will make it more difficult for the untrained employee eyes to spot any sort of health risk which I believe will create a substantial increase contaminated poultry product.  According to the link posted above, "the proposed rules ensure that—at least poultry—will be treated with more chemicals under the new rules. Instead of removing visibly contaminated carcasses from the production line as is currently the practice, the proposed regulations allow contaminated carcasses to remain on the line and treat all carcasses—contaminated or not—with 'automatic bird washers and antimicrobial spraying or drenching equipment'".  This statement is what scared me the most about this possible new inspection procedure because the possible health risks of these added chemicals are most likely enormous.  If an untrained eye is inspecting meat, and massive amount of chemicals are being placed on unsanitary meat, what does that mean for the health of the human population consuming the meat?

I'm Ashley and I agree with Hannah. Allowing cuts in production workers will created an overall health risk for all Americans that eat these meats. “USDA’s proposal to shift this public health responsibility to company employees is a budget-cutting maneuver that puts consumers at risk.” While cutting employes will save "the government over $90 million over three years", the heath and wellness of American people should not be on the back burner and should be the main concern of the United State Government. I feel that if people become sick because of the lack of inspection done to meat, since money is trying to be saved, can ultimately backfire. More money will have to be spend caring for those people who have gotten sick from less meat regulation.