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USDA condemns WaPo article

The USDA is pushing back at the Washington Post for an article falsely claiming the proposed New Swine Slaughter Inspection System would turn pork inspection over to plant employees. FSIS Administrator Carmen Rottenberg tells Brownfield, by law, only federal inspectors do meat inspections and to do otherwise would be incredibly irresponsible, “ONLY the USDA inspectors can apply that mark of inspection. Consumers rely on that mark and so it’s very concerning to make the kind of statements that were made in the Washington Post to imply that we are reducing inspections.”

Ag Secretary Perdue explained the system to lawmakers at a hearing on Capitol Hill last week, “Most of this effort has to do with pre-sorting the animals. What we’re doing is asking the plant people to pre-sort those animals to make sure those from a visual perspective that don’t look healthy initially are not processed along in between the others.”

And, Perdue emphasized, “USDA inspectors are looking at every animal at slaughter.”

The FSIS did a point by point take-down of the article’s false claims.