Despite decades of efforts to try and reduce illnesses caused by salmonella in food, more than 1 million people are sickened every year and nearly a fourth of those cases come from turkey and chicken meat.
As it stands, consumers bear much of the responsibility for avoiding illness from raw poultry by handling it carefully in the kitchen - following the usual advice to not wash raw chicken or turkey , using separate utensils when preparing meat and cooking to 165 degrees. The USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service wants to do something about it by starting with the farmers that raise the birds and following through the processing plant where the meat is made.
In an effort to curtail salmonella outbreaks in poultry, the agency is proposing a regulatory framework that would include testing incoming flocks of chickens and turkeys for the bacterial disease that commonly affects the intestinal tract and affects 1.3 million people annually with symptoms that may include diarrhea, nausea and vomiting which could last for several days.
The agency said it is taking its time to roll out these ideas and get input before establishing firm regulations. The agency hopes to begin rulemaking in mid-2023 and complete it in two years, said USDA Deputy Under Secretary for Food Safety Sandra Eskin. Seattle-based lawyer Bill Marler, one of the nation's leading lawyers to represent consumers sickened by food sources applauded the agency's action which recognizes that controlling salmonella on animals before they reach processing plants is crucial to reducing meat contamination. He said FSIS should be bold and deem salmonella is a adulterant - a contaminant that can cause food-borne illness - in all meat as a starting point.
Eskin said the industry has managed to reduce the number of chicken samples contaminated with salmonella by 50% from 2017 to 2021, but the rate of salmonella illnesses over the last two decades has not significantly declined. More than 23% of foodborne salmonella illnesses are attributable to poultry consumption with nearly 17% coming from chicken meat and more than 6% from turkey meat.
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