July 16, 2002 GAO REPORT SHARPLY CRITICAL OF GOVERNMENT'S FOOD INSPECTION SYSTEM Company inspectors inadequately trained, nearly all plants don't meet requirements AGRIBUSINESS EXAMINER July 16, 2002 #174 Monitoring Corporate Agribusiness From a Public Interest Perspective EDITOR\PUBLISHER: A.V. Krebs ADDRESS: PO. Box 2201, Everett, Washington 98203-0201 E-MAIL: avkrebs@earthlink.net WEB SITE: http://www.ea1.com/CARP/ TO SUBSCRIBE: Send name and e-mail address CONTRIBUTION$ WELCOME !!! ELLIOT JASPIN, COX NEWS SERVICE: The federal government's new science-based system of food inspections is in disarray, according to a draft report prepared for Congress. The report by the General Accounting Office, obtained by Cox Newspapers, concluded that inadequately trained food inspectors are unable to spot problems at a majority of the nation's thousands of meat and poultry plants. GAO investigators also found that nearly all of the 47 plants that it sampled had food safety programs that "failed to meet regulatory requirements." Despite these shortcomings, the report said the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees food safety, continued to allow plants to ship meat and poultry for consumption by the public, even though tests repeatedly found some were laced with either hazardous bacteria or feces. Despite the findings, it is unclear what impact these problems are having on the safety of America's food supply. In April the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta announced that the incidence of food borne illness had declined 23% since 1966. The Bush administration cited the new inspection system as one of the reasons for the decline. Specific plants were not mentioned in the GAO report. Steven Cohen, an Agriculture Department spokesman, said his agency is still formulating a response to the GAO. But he said the report does not accurately reflect the current state of the government's food inspection program. "Many of the things that the GAO cite in their report were things that (the Agriculture Department) had identified prior to the beginning of their investigation," Cohen said. "And what we are going to be reporting to the GAO are systems and programs that have been designed but not fully implemented to address many of the things that the GAO cited." A GAO spokesman declined to comment, citing the agency's policy of not talking about reports until they are made public. Beginning in 1997, the Agriculture Department started phasing in a new system of inspecting meat and poultry plants. Under the old program, food safety inspectors stationed in slaughterhouses oversaw the killing and processing of animals. Derided as the "poke and sniff" method, it was replaced by a program called Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points, or HACCP. Under HACCP, such things as the presence of bacteria are continuously monitored by company inspectors at key points in the production process. If a problem is detected at a control point, the plant knows it needs to stop production to make corrections. HACCP has dramatically changed the role of government inspectors. Instead of inspecting each carcass as it moves down the production line, they are now supposed to monitor how well the company is implementing its HACCP program.The GAO investigation found that the government "has not trained and does not expect in-plant inspectors to be able to identify deficiencies in the scientific basis of HACCP plans." Two years ago, the Agriculture Department asked Congress for money to create a force of 588 specially trained inspectors capable of reviewing HACCP plans. However, that request was turned down. Instead, the Agriculture Department cobbled together a force of 35 --- a group so small that the GAO says it will take years to look at the thousands of plants around the country. The result, according to the GAO, is that no one can be sure that a plant's HACCP plan is effective. The GAO noted that when special teams reviewed the HACCP plans in 47 plants, they found that 94% "failed to meet regulatory requirements." While not disputing the GAO numbers, Cohen said the GAO's sample size may be too small. The GAO report also found that, according to Agriculture Department records, 55% of the plants in the United States are so-called "perfect plants" because they do not have a single violation from Agriculture Department inspectors. Because it is highly unlikely that a plant could have a perfect record, the GAO suggested that "inspectors did not understand, or were not fulfilling their responsibilities under HACCP." Cohen acknowledged that the department's implementation of HACCP has been uneven and that it is working to correct the problems cited in the GAO study. Even when problems are found, the GAO said that the government is not moving quickly enough to have them corrected. It cited one unnamed plant where drug residues were found repeatedly in the animals that were slaughtered. Although first discovered in August 2000, the problem was not addressed until April 2001. Felicia Nestor, a lawyer at the Washington-based Government Accountability Project (GAP), a consumer group that protects whistle-blowers, said the report shows "we don't have a science-based inspection system." She said that the Agriculture Department training programs for inspectors are inadequate and "no one out in the field knows what to do." She also argued that Agriculture Department policies are vague and contradictory. Caroline Smith DeWaal, food safety director at the Center for Science in the Public Interest in Washington, a nonprofit education and advocacy group, said she also questions administration claims about the reduction in food borne illness. She said that while there has been an overall reduction in salmonella outbreaks, this has been because salmonella contamination of eggs has dropped. The incidence of salmonella in meat and poultry products has either stayed the same or gone up, she said.