The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a group of doctors that emphasizes plant-based nutrition, has petitioned the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to warn consumers that asymptomatic processing plant workers may spread COVID-19 to meat and poultry products.
The animal rights organization also requested that all meat and poultry products be tested for COVID-19 before they are available to be sold in stores.
“Because these workers, who may be asymptomatic viral carriers, directly handle meat and poultry products, and because SARS-CoV-2 is easily airborne, remaining detectable for 30 minutes or more in air samples, transmission of the virus to the products they handle is likely,” Mark Kennedy, vice president for Legal Affairs at the Physician Committee, said in a statement.
Research on livestock and COVID-19
Scientists around the world are hard at work studying any possible effects of SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19, on animal agriculture and food production.
“We are currently performing research on how long and at what quantity the virus is stable on raw meat products,” said Jürgen A. Richt, the Regents distinguished professor at Kansas State University. Richt recently published a paper calling for additional research on potential economic and food security effects if the virus can be spread among livestock and poultry.
Other research from the Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut (FLI) in Germany has already revealed that chickens are not susceptible from COVID-19.
Industry response
“It is irresponsible to play on the fears of Americans during a global pandemic to accomplish an agenda. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) have found no evidence of transmission of COVID-19 associated with food and because of poor survivability of these coronaviruses on surfaces, there is likely a very low risk of spread from food products or packaging,” Sarah Little, the Vice President of Communications for the North American Meat Institute, said in an e-mailed statement to WATT Global Media.
In April, WHO reassured the food industry that COVID-19 can’t be spread through food or packaging.
“There is no evidence to date of viruses that cause respiratory illnesses being transmitted via food or food packaging. Coronaviruses cannot multiply in food; they need an animal or human host to multiply,” the guidance stated.
Updated guidelines from the CDC this week noted that it is unlikely that the virus can be spread by touching surfaces or objects.
View our continuing coverage of the coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic.
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