In a letter to the editor published in Tuesday’s Washington Post, National Chicken Council President Mike Brown responded to a recent front page article about the safety of antimicrobial use in chicken processing and USDA’s proposed poultry inspection system.
“We take exception to The Post’s characterization of a statement by our vice president of scientific and regulatory affairs as an assertion that, in The Post’s words, ‘the volume of chemicals would increase further under the new rules because a larger volume of birds would be processed,'” Brown wrote. “The volume of chicken produced is dictated by demand and the market, not line speeds or inspection systems.”
The letter continued:
“The chicken industry takes the health and well-being of our workers and inspectors very seriously. Any food-grade antimicrobial is approved for use by the USDA and classified as safe by the Food and Drug Administration at the low concentrations at which it is used. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration found no connection or causation whatsoever between the very unfortunate death of an inspector featured in the article and the plant environment.”
“It is ironic that these inspectors, their union and allies are claiming how bad the work environment is in the plants, yet they’re fighting tooth and nail to stay in them to save some taxpayer-funded jobs that have proven unnecessary over the past 13 years,” Brown said.
The letter, along with one written by Murray Bresky, president and chief executive of Murray’s Chicken, who was also mentioned in The Post article, is available online by clicking here.
NCC’s press release, reaffirming the safe and judicious use of antimicrobials in chicken processing, including input from Auburn poultry scientist Dr. Sarge Bilgili, is available here.
Yesterday, Dr. Elisabeth Hagen, USDA Under Secretary for Food Safety, reaffirmed the agency’s support for modernizing the poultry inspection system in a blog post appearing on Food Safety News and USDA’s Web site.
