DeLauro, Slaughter denounce Foster Farms, USDA over salmonella cases
October 10, 2013 | 08:17 PM
Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., left, and Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., blamed the government shutdown today for slowing response to an antibiotic-resistant salmonella outbreak. (Office of Rep. Slaughter)As the Agriculture Department today released enforcement memos threatening the closure of Foster Farms, the California firm whose products have led consumers to come down with antibiotic-resistant salmonella, Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., denounced USDA for not closing the farm earlier while Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., said she is so afraid of illness she may not eat turkey for Thanksgiving.
USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service sent letters to Foster Farms and its subsidiaries on Monday, saying that the agency was considering withdrawing its inspectors and approvals of meat from the firm, but the letters also indicated that the agency had found problems at Foster Farms for months.
At a joint news conference, DeLauro and Slaughter called on Foster Farms to stop shipping meat until the problems are resolved, but they also said the government shutdown has led to lax enforcement of food safety laws and called for an end to the shutdown as well as the passage of a bill that Slaughter has introduced to control the use of antibiotics used in animal production.
After the news conference, DeLauro told The Hagstrom Report that both Foster Farms and FSIS were “immoral” and “negligent” for not stopping the meat from being shipped when they knew there were problems.
Slaughter said at the news conference that she is so worried about antibiotic-resistant salmonella that “I don’t know what I am going to do about Thanksgiving.” Asked if she was concerned about turkey as well as chicken, Slaughter said, “I am worried about all products that we eat that are fed antibiotics every day.”
Caroline Smith DeWaal, director of the food safety program at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said the reason FSIS had not issued a recall is that it has not been able to tie the case of a sick person to a specific package of meat. FSIS classifies salmonella as a hazard rather than an adulterant, and DeWaal said that FSIS has ignored CSPI’s petition to make antibiotic-resistant salmonella an adulterant.
Meat with adulterants cannot be sold, according to USDA rules.
DeWaal also said that FSIS inspectors have stayed on the job but that the furloughs at the Centers for Disease Control have slowed an investigation of the Foster Farms case. “The government shutdown is really an urgent public health issue,” De Waal said.
Bill Marler, a prominent Seattle-based food safety attorney, told The Hagstrom Report in an email that he will be filing a case on behalf of the victims.
Marler was the attorney for victims in the Seattle Jack in the Box case in the 1990s in which e coli O157:H7 was found in hamburger that sickened children. That case led eventually to the classification of e coli O157:H7in meat as an adulterant.
