News

National Pork Producers dispute Times’ article

The National Pork Producers Council says a New York Times story released Sunday about the 2015 pork salmonella outbreak in Washington state is “wildly inaccurate and one-sided.”

The Times article said overuse of drugs has led to germs building defenses to survive causing the salmonella outbreak. The article tracks much of the meat from the outbreak to a meat processor in Washington who is supplied by farmers in Montana.  The article said the farmers did not allow health officials to inspect their farms to test for salmonella. But the Pork Producers Council says U.S. hog farmers comply with FDA antibiotic regulations and only treat sick or at-risk pigs.

The NPPC said its chief veterinarian, Liz Wagstrom, was interviewed a year ago by the Times and was incorrectly quoted in the story saying inspectors visiting hog farms wouldn’t positively impact public health. But the Council said the Times omitted her comments saying it would be impossible to gather reliable data from farms four months after the outbreak.

The Pork Producers Council said it’s working with the USDA and FDA to develop more detailed data on antibiotic use in market animals.