The decision by the Agriculture Department not to mandate poultry companies to limit salmonella bacteria in their products has halted efforts by the Biden Administration to prevent food poisoning from contaminated meat.
After three years of development, the department announced on Thursday that it was withdrawing a rule proposed in August. This decision came after receiving feedback from over 7,000 public comments. Officials from the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service stated that they would now “evaluate whether it should update” current salmonella regulations.
The proposed rule would have required poultry companies to maintain salmonella bacteria levels below a certain threshold and test for six specific strains associated with illness. If the levels exceeded the standard or any of these strains were detected, the poultry would not be allowed to be sold and would be subject to recall.
The goal of the rule was to reduce the estimated 125,000 salmonella infections from chicken and 43,000 from turkey each year. Overall, salmonella causes 1.35 million infections annually, with about 420 resulting in death, according to the CDC.
The National Chicken Council praised the withdrawal of the rule, stating that it was legally unsound and would have increased costs and food waste without significant benefits to public health.
However, food safety advocates, including former USDA official Sandra Eskin, criticized the decision, highlighting the potential impact on public health.
Sarah Sorscher from the Center for Science in the Public Interest warned that the withdrawal could result in more people falling ill from salmonella contamination.
In a separate development, the USDA announced a six-month delay in enforcing a final rule regulating salmonella levels in certain breaded and stuffed raw chicken products, such as frozen chicken cordon bleu and chicken Kiev dishes.
These products have been linked to numerous salmonella outbreaks and illnesses over the years, according to the CDC.
The Associated Press Health and Science Department is supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
