USDA becomes stricter on salmonella in chicken products | Health, medicine and fitness

The proposed U.S. Department of Agriculture rules would declare salmonella a cutting agent — a contaminant that can cause foodborne illness — in breaded and stuffed raw chicken products. That includes many frozen foods found in supermarkets, including chicken cordon bleu and chicken Kiev products that appear to be cooked through, but are only heat-treated to set the batter or breadcrumbs.

The agency notified producers of the proposed changes on Friday.

Sandra Eskin, USDA’s deputy secretary of state for food safety, said this marks the beginning of a broader effort by the agency to reduce illnesses caused by the salmonella bacteria, which sickens 1.3 million Americans each year. It sends more than 26,000 of them to hospitals and causes 420 deaths, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Food is the source of most of those diseases.

The CDC says that about one in 25 packages of chicken sold in supermarkets contain salmonella bacteria.

Since 1998, breaded and stuffed raw chicken products have been linked to 14 salmonella outbreaks and about 200 diseases, the USDA said in a statement. An outbreak last year linked to frozen breaded raw chicken products caused 36 illnesses in 11 states and sent 12 people to hospitals.

The USDA currently has performance standards that poultry processing plants must meet to reduce contamination, but the agency cannot stop the sale of products. There is also no adequate testing system to determine the levels of salmonella in meat, Eskin said.

The proposed new rules require routine testing in chicken processing plants. Products would be considered counterfeit if they exceed very low levels of Salmonella contamination and would be subject to regulatory action, including formwork plants that fail to reduce Salmonella bacteria in their products, Eskin said.

“This action and our global Salmonella initiative underscore our view that our job is to ensure that meat and poultry products do not make consumers sick,” she said. “They should not be sold if they are so contaminated that people get sick.”

In 1994, the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service took a similar step by declaring some strains of E. coli a contaminant in ground beef and launching a testing program for the pathogen.

Eskin said the agency met with food safety experts and poultry processors for ideas on how to reduce contamination during processing.

Representatives from the National Chicken Council, a trade group, and Tyson Foods said they would not comment until they receive details about the new USDA rule.

Diana Souder, a spokeswoman for Maryland-based Perdue Farms, also declined to comment, but pointed out that the company belongs to the Coalition for Poultry Safety Reform, a group formed last year to work with USDA and others to improve food safety. transmitted diseases by reducing salmonella contamination.

The new rules will be published on the federal registry this fall, and the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service will seek comment from the public before the rules become final and a date for implementation is set.