WASHINGTON, DC—Representatives Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and Louise Slaughter (D-NY) today renewed their call for the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) to halt operations at Foster Farms processing plants involved in the ongoing Salmonella Heidelberg recall until the source of the contamination is identified and eliminated. The Salmonella outbreak has sickened over 600 people in 29 states. The Congresswomen first made this call on Monday, but no action has occurred.

“FSIS needs to take responsibility for consumers’ safety, and not bow to the will of industry, which is most concerned with profits,” DeLauro and Slaughter wrote to Acting Under Secretary for Food Safety Brian Ronholm. “It is dumbfounding that FSIS is allowing Foster Farms to keep their plants open when they clearly cannot resolve the problem and are continuing to sell products that are a threat to the public health.”

DeLauro and Slaughter also asked FSIS to:

·         Release information on which Salmonella strains are still being detected at Foster Farms processing facilities

·         Work with Foster Farms and the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service to determine the source of the contamination

Last month DeLauro and Slaughter introduced the Pathogen Reduction and Testing Reform Act, which would require USDA to recall any meat, poultry, or egg product contaminated by pathogens associated with serious illness or death, or that are resistant to two or more critically important antibiotics for human medicine.

DeLauro is a former Chairwoman of the Subcommittee that funds USDA and a longtime advocate for stronger food safety standards. Slaughter, the only microbiologist in Congress, is the author of the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act (PAMTA), which would ban the routine overuse of eight critical classes of antibiotics on healthy food animals.