USDA Rolls Out New Plan to Reduce Salmonella Sicknesses in Poultry

Yes, it's true. Over the last 20 years, the United States has seen a significant reduction in contamination of raw chicken and other poultry products by salmonella bacteria.

“However, we’ve seen no change in the amount of illness there's attributed to chicken and that's just not right,” said Doctor Emilio Esteban Under Secretary of Agriculture for Food Safety.  He said to make it right and reduce the numbers of human illnesses caused by salmonella and poultry.  The U.S. is now proposing new rules that would have poultry growers and processing plants place a lot more attention on testing for and eliminating a half dozen of the 2,700 types of salmonella that are out there.

“It's not a perfect solution," Doctor Esteban pointed out, "but it's a huge step in the right direction to at least start to focus on those startups that are really making people sick.” 

Doctor Esteban said out of the thousands of types of salmonella bacteria that exist only about a half dozen of them can infest raw poultry and cause human illnesses. At the same time. He says those are the types of salmonella the industry needs to concentrate on at every point along the poultry production system, from the farm to the processing plant to the consumer onion with different layers and each layer has another layer of protection.

“I see it as an onion with different layers," Doctor Esteban said.  "And each of these layers has a different layer of protection.”

And the layers begin at the farm level. 

“If you present a very nice clean healthy chicken to the slaughter plant, then it's obviously easier for you maintain that quality within the plant," Doctor Esteban continued.  "That maintains the uniformity and adds another level of protection. Then, if you take it to the final product and we are now implementing a final product sample to remove certain stereotypes and amounts of contaminated products, and then you include good consumer handling and practices for cooking. It is the responsibility of the entire chain to the claim from breed. Don't make people sick eating contaminated poultry.”

And Doctor Esteban said the plan for these new rules is to prevent products contaminated with these types of bacteria from ever being sold to consumers at all. And in doing so, we'll reduce human illnesses by about 25%,” he noted.

If you have a story idea for the PNW Ag Network, call (509) 547-1618, or e-mail glenn.vaagen@townsquaremedia.com