For Related Articles and More Information, Please Visit OCA’s Factory Farming Page and our Food Safety Research Center Page.

Think you have it tough at work? Imagine taking a post at a factory-scale poultry slaughterhouse. Chicken carcasses whiz by at the rate of 140 per minute, requiring repetitive hand motions with sharp knives. Then there’s the caustic odor of chemical sprays and washes-practices the industry has resorted to in recent years as a way to control bacterial pathogens like salmonella.

The US Department of Agriculture, which inspects the kill line at these plants, has been brandishing a proposal since 2012 that would remove some inspectors from the kill line while allowing the industry to speed them up to a rate of 175 birds per minute-a 25 percent acceleration. The speedup would likely increase reliance on those antimicrobial sprays to manage pathogens: In the USDA’s proposal, “visibly contaminated poultry carcasses” would be allowed to remain on-line for treatment with germ-killing chemicals, instead of being taken offline for cleaning, as is the current practice. For companies that opt to keep their “visibly contaminated” birds on the kill line, “all carcasses” on the line would be doused with antimicrobial chemicals, the proposal states, “whether they are contaminated or not.”

The department has delayed finalizing the highly controversial new setup, but keeps stubbornly repeating its intention to do so, eventually. As recently as April 3, Brian Ronholm, acting under secretary for food safety, touted the plan before a House subcommittee.