USDA seeks to limit salmonella in raw poultry products

July 29 (UPI) -- The U.S. Agriculture Department on Monday announced new efforts to reduce salmonella contamination and consumers' illnesses associated with raw poultry products.

The agency's Food Safety and Inspection Service conducted a three-year study to re-evaluate its strategy.

The proposal would establish final product standards to prevent raw chicken carcasses, chicken parts, ground chicken and ground turkey products that contain any type of salmonella at or above 10 colony forming units per gram/ml and any detectable level of at least one of the salmonella serotypes of "public health significance from entering commerce."

The proposal would require poultry establishments to develop a microbial monitoring program to prevent pathogen contamination throughout the slaughter system.

"Far too many consumers become sick from poultry contaminated with Salmonella, and today's announcement marks a historic step forward to combat this threat," Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said. "This proposed framework is a systematic approach to addressing Salmonella contamination at poultry slaughter and processing, which includes enforceable standards that will result in safer food for consumers and fewer illnesses."

Overall, salmonella bacteria causes 1.3 million human infections, 26,500 hospitalizations and 420 deaths in the United States each year, according to FSIS .

FSIS estimates more than 23% of cases are due to eating chicken and turkey.

That breaks down to 125,000 chicken-associated and almost 43,000 turkey-associated foodborne salmonella illnesses per year in the United States.

"FSIS testing data show that salmonella contamination on poultry has been going down, but this has not translated into a reduction in human illnesses," FSIS said. "Rates of human illness have remained stagnant over the last two decades, and we have not moved any closer to the national goal of a 25% reduction in Salmonella illnesses."

Comments on the proposal must be received within 60 days after publication in the Federal Register.

"The proposed salmonella framework is grounded in data and rigorous scientific evaluation, and it reflects feedback from extensive stakeholder engagement," USDA Under Secretary for Food Safety Dr. Emilio Esteban said. "We encourage all interested stakeholders to submit comments and relevant data on the proposal as we work to finalize data-driven, science-based regulatory policies to address Salmonella in poultry."

In April , the Agriculture Department finalized a rule regulating salmonella for the first time in raw breaded stuffed chicken products.

The new policy declares salmonella "an adulterant in raw breaded stuffed chicken products" when contamination exceeds one colony forming unit per gram or higher in an effort to reduce salmonella-related illness.

The National Chicken Council opposes the change.

"NCC is gravely concerned that the precedent set by this abrupt shift in longstanding policy has the potential to shutter processing plants, cost jobs, and take safe food and convenient products off shelves," NCC President Mike Brown said in a news release . "We're also surprised by FSIS's victory lap here when the agency has no idea if this will move the needle on public health," said NCC President Mike Brown in response.

NCC estimates annually more than 200 million servings of this product will be lost, and 500 to 1,000 people will lose their jobs.