● Consumers want to be able to trust that the food they eat is safe.
● Salmonella and Campylobacter, which are commonly found on poultry, account for 70 percent of the foodborne illnesses tracked by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
● Illnesses from Salmonella and Campylobacter don’t stem from the unlawful distribution of contaminated chicken. Instead, under rules set by the Department of Agriculture, poultry processors can legally distribute their products even if they know they may contain harmful bacteria.
● These bacteria sicken 3 million people and cost about $6 billion annually.
● While the federal government set targets for decreased Salmonella and Campylobacter infections as part of its Healthy People 2020 goals, released in 2010, the U.S. failed to meet those targets. Rates of illnesses caused by Salmonella and Campylobacter have remained essentially unchanged.
● Progress on reducing foodborne illness has been at a standstill, while scientific knowledge of Salmonella has greatly increased and recognized best practices for Campylobacter and other pathogens has advanced.
● Science tells us that current performance standards do not effectively target the particular types of Salmonella and the levels of bacteria that pose the greatest risks of illness, and the overall regulatory framework does not adequately harness modern tools for preventing and verifying control of the bacteria that are making people sick.
● Many consumers mistakenly wash poultry before cooking, which increases the risk of contamination of ready-to-eat foods and surfaces anywhere within splashing distance.
● Proper handling and cooking of poultry is the one thing that will eliminate any risk of foodborne illness. The burden of reducing Salmonella and Campylobacter infections falls heavily on consumers, who are urged to cook poultry thoroughly to kill the pathogens.
● Consumers, however, cannot control their kitchens down to a microbe.
● Our coalition of consumer groups, academic experts, poultry companies, and survivors of foodborne illness petitioned USDA (January 2021) to establish enforceable standards targeting Salmonella, while reducing all Salmonella and Campylobacter in poultry.
● In response, the USDA announced in October 2021 new efforts to reduce Salmonella-related illnesses associated with poultry. The agency has committed to launching research and action on multiple fronts to reduce Salmonella illnesses by 25% by 2030.
● Rather than addressing Salmonella and Campylobacter in parallel, the USDA chose to focus on Salmonella reduction first. In August 2022, USDA announced action to declare Salmonella an adulterant in breaded stuffed raw chicken products.
● This announcement is important because it is the first time that Salmonella is being declared an adulterant in a class of raw poultry products. This is just the first step. To move closer to our stated national public health targets, we must continue taking decisive action to control Salmonella in all poultry products.
Four Major Poultry Producers Join Consumer Groups, Other Advocates
An unprecedented coalition of consumer groups, illness survivors, poultry industry leaders, academic scientists, and other food safety leaders are seeking a meeting with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to make a united case for a modernized, science-based regulatory approach to ensure the food safety of poultry products.
Poultry producers Butterball, Perdue Farms, Tyson Foods, and Wayne Farms aligned with four consumer groups—the Center for Science in the Public Interest, Consumer Federation of America, Consumer Reports, and Stop Foodborne Illness—on key poultry food safety principles and jointly asked for modernized USDA poultry food safety standards that are “objective, risk-based, achievable, enforceable and flexible” enough to adapt to evolving science.
Illnesses from Salmonella and Campylobacter, which are commonly found on poultry, account for 70 percent of the foodborne illnesses tracked by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. These bacteria sicken 3 million people and cost about $6 billion annually. While the federal government set targets for decreased Salmonella and Campylobacter infections as part of its Healthy People 2020 goals, released in 2010, the U.S. failed to meet those targets. Rates of illnesses caused by Salmonella and Campylobacter have remained essentially unchanged.
Besides officials at the companies and the consumer groups, the request to Vilsack was signed by several survivors of foodborne illness, the Association of Food and Drug Officials, Mike Robach, former Cargill food safety quality and regulatory head and former Global Food Safety Initiative Board chairman, and three of the country’s most prominent academic food safety experts, Drs. Craig Hedberg, J. Glenn Morris, and Martin Wiedmann. Former senior USDA food safety officials Michael Taylor, Brian Ronholm, and Jerry Mande also added their signatures.
“While progress on reducing foodborne illness has been at a standstill, scientific knowledge of Salmonella has greatly increased and recognized best practices for Campylobacter and other pathogens has advanced,” the parties wrote to Vilsack.
“Science tells us that current performance standards do not effectively target the particular types of Salmonella and the levels of bacteria that pose the greatest risks of illness, and the overall regulatory framework does not adequately harness modern tools for preventing and verifying control of the bacteria that are making people sick.”
“Everyone involved in the production and processing of poultry is invested in producing the safest products possible,” said Mike Robach. “But we all recognize that a modern, risk-based and science-based approach to food safety is necessary both to control pathogens and to promote consumer confidence in the safety of the poultry supply.”
“The science has grown by leaps and bounds since I led USDA’s efforts to create the current poultry standards in the 1990s,” said Michael Taylor, who served as Administrator for the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service from 1994 to 1996. “It was the best we could do at the time, but what we know now makes the standards on the books no longer defensible.”
“When the federal government fails to meet its own goals for reducing the incidence of foodborne illness, it’s clear that a new approach is needed,” said CSPI deputy director of regulatory affairs Sarah Sorscher. “Our coalition of consumer groups, academic experts, poultry companies, and survivors of foodborne illness stands ready to support Secretary Vilsack and the USDA team in modernizing our poultry safety system.”
More information about the campaign to reduce Salmonella and Campylobacter illnesses due to poultry is available at https://stopfoodborneillness.org/safer-poultry-for-everyone/.
The utterly helpless feelings of my baby girl painfully, miserably cuddled up on my chest and me, sitting there waiting, knowing there is nothing I can do to help, is an experience I never want to go through again.
. . . with the cramping in my stomach, I no longer had the strength to stand. I had a brief pause, and found myself lying on the floor of the bathroom. Covered in vomit and diarrhea, I reached into the pocket of my pants, pulled out my phone and texted “help” to my wife.
. . . the infection wasn’t going down without a fight. I couldn’t pick my head up off the pillow. I was so sick that I really didn’t think about the future or the past. I was fighting to live and didn’t have time or energy to think about dying.
Who’s going to come running when there’s a massive fire? Doctors? Teachers? Personally, I’d rather have a trained firefighter putting out my blaze!
Mary was only 16 when she fell ill, and because she had severe cramping and diarrhea she was unable to keep any food in. She soon began to lose significant weight.
We never think that one meal, one illness, will take us somewhere we’ve never been and never want to go … There was no time to think about the future . . . I needed to live in that moment, because . . . my son was still with me, still alive.
Amanda Craten, tells why she believes the USDA/FSIS needs stronger, enforceable poultry regulations.
“It’s time — it’s past time — for USDA to bring people together and do the work needed to make the FSIS regulatory system and mark of inspection for poultry mean something for public health.” ~ Mike Taylor
Mike Taylor is Board member emeritus of Stop Foodborne Illness and a former FDA Deputy Commissioner for Foods and Veterinary Medicine and a former USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service administrator
“Consumers want to be able to trust that the food they eat is safe. My family wants nothing more than to ensure the USDA is using the best possible tools to keep others from suffering what we have suffered.”
~ Amanda Craten, a petitioner and member of the Board of Directors at Stop Foodborne Illness, whose 18-month son was seriously injured and permanently disabled as a result of Salmonella-contaminated chicken
“For too long, progress on reducing infections caused by Salmonella and Campylobacter in meat and poultry has stalled. The science and technology available to reduce foodborne illness has advanced by leaps and bounds, but USDA food safety regulations have not kept up. That needs to change.”
~ Thomas Gremillion, Director of Food Policy at Consumer Federation of America
By Brittany Gibson
September 2, 2021 | Politico Pro
By Dan Flynn
September 5, 2021 | Food Safety News
By Keller and Heckman Food and Drug Law
September 8, 2021 |The National Law Review
By Rachel Rabkin Peachman
August 4, 2021 | Consumer Reports
By Michael R. Taylor
January 25, 2021 | Food Safety News
By Thomas Gremillion
August 26, 2021 | CFA
By Thomas Gremillion
October 15, 2020 | CFA
By Craig Hedberg, J. Glenn Morris, and Martin Wiedmann
July 15, 2021 | Op-Ed The Hill
“A science-based approach is imperative to identifying the measures and controls that will help reduce foodborne illness rates linked to Salmonella and Campylobacter. We must leverage FSIS’ public health expertise, available science, and industry best practices in order to fully protect consumers.”
“We have seen little progress in actually reducing the number of people getting sick from Salmonella or Campylobacter.”
“A big reason for that is the USDA has yet to take full advantage of the best current technology and science to control foodborne disease from farm to fork.”
“It’s unacceptable that the USDA is lagging so far behind the science, other food safety regulatory bodies and some members of the poultry industry itself in requiring adequate controls to prevent illnesses from these bacteria. At the end of the day, the agency’s priority should be protecting the consumer from preventable illness.”
KEEP YOU AND YOUR FAMILY SAFE
Our mission:
As the voice of people affected by foodborne illness, we collaborate with partners in academia, the food industry, and government to prevent foodborne illness. We advocate for effective food safety policy and facilitate culture change to increase food safety.
Stop Foodborne Illness is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. Donations are tax-deductible to the extent the law allows.
