USDA pig inspection
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is trying out a
new method of pork inspection; faster speed inspection lines and fewer inspectors. If this sounds familiar to you, it should. It's the same method of inspection they tried, and are now partially using, to
inspect chicken. How's that worked out? Well, as long as people don't seem to mind eating crap (literally) and all kinds of pathogens, including
antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria, all is good.
Since people seem to be okay with the consequences of the looser inspection methods, the USDA seems to think they should expand the method to include pork inspection; because what the inspectors can't see, can't hurt you, right?
Lindsay Abrams at Salon gives us the meat of the matter:
The USDA is piloting a new pork inspection program that features sped-up lines and a reduction in government inspectors — and its own inspectors are now speaking out publicly in condemnation of it.
The Government Accountability Project released affidavits Friday from three USDA inspectors working in plants running the pilot program, known as HIMP, as well as from a fourth, Joe Ferguson, who retired last year after 23 years with the agency. All voice concerns about the public health implications of increasing line speeds, which adhere closely to the criticisms from outside parties. The gist, in the words of one anonymous inspector: “There aren’t enough eyes on the line to monitor carcasses coming by at such high speed.”
The whistleblowers allege, moreover, that the pilot program gives too much regulatory control to the industry. The new model replaces USDA line inspectors with plant employees, who, they say, lack both the adequate training to spot defects and signs of contamination and the legal safeguards that would allow them to freely speak out about food safety problems. ”I have witnessed company employees personally condemn the plant’s products and then attempt to sneak the condemned carcasses past me when I turned away,” wrote one anonymous inspector. “The company threatens plant employees with terminations if they see them condemning too many carcasses or carcass parts.”
So yes, the new inspection method turns the hen house inspection over to the foxes. Who profits from these new inspection methods? The meat industry, of course.