Bill Would Strengthen Existing Food Safety Laws to Ensure USDA Knows It Can Recall Products Contaminated with Dangerous Pathogens, Including Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria

Continuous Outbreak of Salmonella Heidelberg in 2013 and 2014 Sickened Over 600 Americans, USDA Claimed They Could Not Legally Issue Recall of Tainted Poultry

WASHINGTON – Today, Congresswomen Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and Louise M. Slaughter (D-NY), two of the leading food safety advocates in Congress, introduced legislation that would strengthen the ability of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to keep Americans safe from contaminated meat, poultry, and eggs. Currently, the USDA will only issue a recall if a meat, poultry, or egg product is considered “adulterated” – a term that is ambiguously defined in current law. Because of that ambiguity, USDA claims they do not have the authority to issue recalls for meat, poultry, or egg products.

Although DeLauro and Slaughter strenuously object to USDA’s interpretation of the law, they are introducing the Pathogens Reduction and Testing Reform Act to ensure American families are protected. The bill 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.

“The USDA has failed to recall meat contaminated with antibiotic-resistant pathogens because they do not believe they have the legal authority to do so. This bill would ensure there is no confusion,” said Representatives DeLauro and Slaughter. “We urge Congress to pass this legislation before more Americans are sickened by contaminated meat, poultry, or egg products. We need federal agencies that will protect public health, not bend to the threats of deep-pocketed food producers seeking to escape regulation.”

Over the past year, an outbreak of antibiotic-resistant Salmonella Heidelberg traced back to chicken produced by Foster Farms has sickened at least 601 Americans, hospitalizing around 40 percent of those infected. Despite the length and severity of the outbreak, none of the company’s products have been recalled by the USDA because of the legal ambiguity. In the wake of the outbreak, Representatives DeLauro and Slaughter met with USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), where they were told FSIS does not believe they have the authority to declare Salmonella an adulterant.

“This is an important piece of legislation that strengthens the Federal Meat Inspection, Egg Products Inspection, and Poultry Products Inspection Acts.   There have been ill-conceived proposals to deregulate inspection at USDA while at the same time there has been no effort to give USDA inspectors the necessary regulatory tools to prevent contaminated products from reaching our dinner tables.  This bill finally brings our inspection laws into 21st Century,” said Tony Corbo of Food and Water Watch.

"CSPI believes USDA can act now to declare dangerous strains of antibiotic-resistant Salmonella to be adulterants," said Center for Science in the Public Interest food safety director Caroline Smith DeWaal.  "But since the agency claims it doesn't have that authority, the legislation introduced today would remove any shadow of a doubt, and keep these particularly dangerous strains of bacteria out of the food supply."

“When E. coli O157:H7 sickened hundreds of consumers in the 1990s, USDA decided that we cannot tolerate E. coli in ground beef. Yet we are still allowing Salmonella in chicken, even after an outbreak that has sickened over 600 people,” said Chris Waldrop, director of the Food Policy Institute at Consumer Federation of America. “This legislation would change that and provide USDA with clear authority to protect consumers from contaminated food.”  

DeLauro is a former Chairwoman of the Subcommittee that funds USDA. During a Subcommittee hearing this past March, she asked Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack what was preventing USDA from strengthening poultry salmonella standards. When he responded that USDA has limited authority in that area, DeLauro told him point blank "ask us for the authority.” Secretary Vilsack declined to respond. The hearing can be viewed here.

Rep. 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 8 critical classes of antibiotics on healthy food animals. Eighty percent of the antibiotics sold in the United States are given to healthy food animals, often to promote growth and overcompensate for crowded and unsanitary conditions. As a result, bacteria become resistant to these antibiotics. Antibiotic-resistant infections kill tens of thousands of Americans every year.

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