(The Center Square) – A new watchdog report highlights issues with the Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service regarding meat and poultry safety.
The report shows that the department has paused work on multiple standards, such as finalizing or updating standards for Campylobacter, an illness-causing bacteria, and highlighted concerns about foodborne illnesses caused by pathogens like Salmonella and Listeria, which affect 1 in 6 Americans and kill thousands a year.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office conducted the study due to foodborne illness remaining a “common and costly public health problem.” The most recent study was done after an outbreak of Listeria monocytogenes in July 2024 that sickened 61 people in 19 states and caused 10 deaths as of Nov. 21, 2024.
The Food Safety and Inspection Service, a public health regulatory agency that provides federal inspection, is tasked with ensuring the safety of meat, poultry, and egg products using Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points, which are based on identifying, preventing and controlling foodborne hazards.
Federal oversight of food safety has been on the GAO’s High-Risk List since 2007.
The GAO’s report urges the department to strengthen its oversight of meat and poultry products, citing persistent gaps in food safety measures and gave five recommendations, including that the department document its prioritization of pathogen standards and review the public health impacts of delaying proposed pathogen standards.
The report states that FSIS officials said they intend to use a similar approach to developing the other standards when finished with the Salmonella framework.
The third recommendation is to revise or create a new contract with USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service that clearly outlines each agency’s specific responsibilities to improve coordination and response efforts during an active outbreak.
Aside from APHIS and FSIS administrators updating their agreements to define those responsibilities clearly, GAO also suggests that FSIS should also provide educational materials to regulated plants in an effort to improve sanitation and reduce the spread of bacteria.
The USDA’s 2024 budget allocated nearly $1.3 billion for FSIS, an 11% increase in funding since 2023. The budget included a total of 8,478 full-time equivalent employees. According to documents, about 80% of the budget is used for salaries and benefits, primarily for the inspection staff, investigators, and lab technicians who work in food establishments.
That funding covers critical expenses such as inspector travel, state-level programs, and operational costs. The budget also includes $46.7 million for pay increases and $4 million for inflation-related adjustments.
The department reported conducting ante-mortem and post-mortem inspections in 161 million heads of livestock and 9.8 billion poultry carcasses in 2023, as well as 2.7 billion pounds of liquid, frozen, and dried egg products inspections and conducted 7.7 million food safety procedures.
