FOOD SAFETY
The Food Safety and Inspection Service has a mountain of unreleased data on the supposed relationship between generic E. coli and Salmonella in poultry samples. FSIS should release the data immediately.
In January, the Food Safety and Inspection Service published a proposed rule, “Modernization of Poultry Slaughter Inspection,” with important changes in the rules of processing, including the intention of FSIS to drop the requirement that plants test chilled carcasses for E. coli. Individual establishments will be allowed to use “other, more relevant” but unspecified indicators of process control, with individual HACCP plans identifying what bacterial monitoring is to be done. Dropping the E. coli testing requirement is a sharp departure from the dogma of poultry HACCP as mandated by FSIS in the last 15 years.
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