http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-friedrich/usda-inspector-general-fo_b_3333853.html
I hope you will consider writing about this extremely concerning report, or sharing a link to Bruce’s blog. Bruce Friedrich is available for interview any time.
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Meredith Turner
Media Relations Specialist
646-369-6212
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USDA Inspector General:
Food Safety and Humane Slaughter Laws Ignored With Impunity
by Bruce Friedrich, Senior Director for Strategic Initiatives, Farm Sanctuary
Food Safety , Humane Slaughter, Office Of The Inspector General, Usda, Green News
Two weeks ago, the USDA's Office of the Inspector General released a report that, once again, proves that our food system is broken:
1. FSIS does not meaningfully attempt to stop repeat violations of food safety laws.
2. it has allowed a 15-year-old pilot program with faster slaughter and fewer inspectors to proceed without review.
3. it all but ignores its humane slaughter mandate.
Remarkably, unless you read Food Safety News or the agricultural media, you will have missed this extremely damning report.
First, FSIS' food safety oversight system in pig slaughterhouses is completely broken.
Out of 44,128 identified violations of food safety laws at 616 slaughterhouses over four years, there were just 28 plant suspensions, all brief. Over these same four years, FSIS didn't reach enforcement stage 5 or 6 even once.
OIG offers examples of illegal activity that warranted but did not receive suspension, including:
At a South Carolina slaughterhouse, FSIS issued more than 800 violations, including fourteen for egregious violations like "fecal contamination on a hog after the final trim," almost 100 "for exposed or possibly adulterated products that had 'grease smears' or 'black colored liquid substance' on processed meat," and 43 for "pest control problems, such as cockroaches on the kill floor." This plant was not suspended even once.
At a Nebraska slaughterhouse, FSIS issued more than 600 violations, which included 50 repeat violations for "contaminated carcasses that included 'fecal material which was yellow [and] fibrous' on the carcass." FSIS never even reached enforcement stage three, notice of intended enforcement, let alone suspension.
At an Illinois slaughterhouse, FSIS issued more than 500 violations, including 26 repeat violations for "fecal matter and running abscesses on carcasses."
Nevertheless, FSIS never even got to stage three on its 6-stage plan.
Second, fifteen years ago USDA approved a "pilot program" to speed slaughter lines and reduce inspector numbers in some plants, but it never bothered to see how the program is working.
Remarkably, the slaughterhouse with the most violations was such a plant, "with nearly 50 percent more [violations] than the plant with the next highest number."
One of these plants doesn't even require manual inspection of viscera, a requirement at the other 615 pig slaughter plants, because "some signs of disease and contamination can be detected only through a manual inspection.
Third, even top FSIS personnel don't understand what the Humane Slaughter Act requires of them.
Decisions are "inconsistent, lenient, and endorsed by district officials." OIG officials visited just 30 plants, each for no more than 30 minutes, and yet they still witnessed multiple instances of animals regaining consciousness after "stunning," for which the inspector-in-charge chose not to issue a report (as was legally required). "If this occurred when our audit team and FSI officials were present, we are concerned that this might be more prevalent when the plants and inspectors are not being observed."
The OIG also reviewed violation reports for these 30 plants and found that of the 158 violations, there were 10 egregious violations that did not result in suspension, as is legally required.
As just two examples:
At an Indiana slaughterhouse, a worker shot a pig through the head with a captive bolt, which "lodged in the hog's skull. The hog remained conscious and aware while the plant sent for another gun, which was about 2 minutes away.
The second gun also appeared to misfire causing the hog to squeal, but it remained conscious and aware.
The hog then managed to dislodge the first gun from its skull. Ultimately, a portable electric stunner had to be used to successfully render the hog unconscious. Following this incident, FSIS cited another violation for a hog regaining consciousness on the rail. The plant was not suspended for either egregious incident."
At a Pennsylvania slaughterhouse, "a hog that had been stunned and bled regained consciousness. The hog was able to right its head, make noise, kick, and splash water in reaction to being placed in a scalding tank."
Yes, this poor animal was placed, throat slit open but conscious, into scalding hot water. "The inspector only issued an NR. The plant was not suspended."
Additionally, OIG interviewed 39 inspectors at the 30 plants they visited; one-third said they would not even issue a noncompliance report if they witnessed a conscious animal on the bleed rail (which legally requires suspension).
OIG noted that similar inspector confusion regarding their basic legal obligations was clear in reports from GAO and OIG in 2010 and 2008, yet nothing has been done to rectify the situation.
Every year according to the CDC, there are tens of millions of cases of food poisoning, hundreds of thousands of hospitalizations, and thousands of deaths.
The agency charged with reducing these numbers, FSIS is doing, a pathetically bad job,according to its Office of the Inspector General,
Every year, roughly 150 million cattle and pigs are slaughtered in our nation's slaughterhouses, and the one measly law that attempts to ensure some small decrease in their abuse is all-but-ignored by the agency charged with enforcing it. Even their top personnel don't understand what it says.
Want to stop eating contaminated food and take a stand for compassion at the same time?
Please consider eliminating meat from your diet.
Office of the Inspector General
To promote effectiveness and integrity in the delivery of USDA agricultural programs.
Too Many Repeat Violators in Hog Slaughter, IG Report Says
Too many repeat violations are occurring at federally inspected pig slaughter plants, and the problem lies with inadequate enforcement, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Inspector General. The IG‘s conclusion is found in a recently released audit report on USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service’s (FSIS) inspection and enforcement activities at the nation’s swine slaughter plants.
“FSIS’ enforcement policies do not deter swine slaughter plants from becoming repeat violators of food safety regulations,” the IG report says. During a three-year period ending with 2011, the IG said FSIS issued 44,128 noncompliance records (NRs), but only 28 of the nation’s 616 swine plants ever faced suspension.
NRs are citations for violations of sanitation regulations. “Mission-critical” violations are suppose to be entered into the FSIS monitoring system known as the Public Health Information System (PHIS) and subject to more aggressive enforcement by district offices.
From issuing NRs, inspectors in swine slaughter plants are charged with taking regulatory control with such actions as retaining product, rejecting equipment or facilities and slowing or stopping the lines to take immediate corrective action.
Following regulatory control, FSIS district offices are empowered to suspend, withhold the mark of inspection or even withdraw inspectors from the plant. But the IG says suspensions are rare and in the four-year scope of its investigation, no withholding or withdrawing actions were ever taken.
“For the few plants that were suspended, the suspensions only briefly interrupted plant activity,” says the IG report.
The audit found that even when a pattern of NRs were linked by the PHIS and the number of repeat violations were high, FSIS officials “did not feel a need to pursue progressively stronger enforcement action” if there was no immediate public health risk.
“We disagree with this practice because the plants repeated the same serious violations with little or no consequence,” the IG report says. Examples cited included:
A South Carolina plant that slaughtered 2,700 swine per day with violations that included 43 NRs for pests, such as cockroaches, on the kill floor.
A Nebraska plant that slaughtered 10,600 swine per day with 607 NRs, including 214 repeats, among them 50 for contaminated carcasses with “fecal material which was yellow (and) fibrous.”
An Illinois plant that slaughters 19,500 swine per day with 532 NRs and 139, or 26 percent of them, including repeats for “fecal matter and abscesses on carcasses…”
“Since microbiological tests are performed only on a sample of carcasses (whereas visual and manual inspections are required on all carcasses), we questions whether this is a better measure for food safety due to its limited use,” the IG report says.
Further, the IG says FSIS does not distinguish between serious violations and minor infractions in its NRs. It points out how an NR for a document dating error and an NR for fibrous fecal material on a carcass are now given equal weight.
FSIS Administrator Al Almanza responded to the 11 recommendations from the IG largely by agreeing with them and outlining a work program for accomplishing them.
For example, the IG recommends progressively stronger enforcement actions against plants with serious or repetitive violations. Almanza said the agency will take stronger enforcement actions based on Food Safety Assessments by Jan. 1, 2014.
The IG also recommended that FSIS come up with a system to classify all food safety NRs, and the FSIS administrator is promising to implement such a system on PHIS, also by Jan. 1, 2014.
Also getting attention in the IG report was FSIS’ pilot program, known as the HACCP Inspection Models Project (HIMP) for swine. HIMP for swine is limited to five large plants, but the IG said three of those five plants made the top ten for NRs.
“In the 15 years since the program’s inception, FSIS did not critically assess whether the new inspection process had measurably improved food safety at swine HIMP plants—a key goal of the HIMP program.”
FSIS has promised a complete evaluation of the HIMP hog program by March 31, 2014.
The IG’s findings on the HIMP in swine were quickly embraced by opponents of the program. Food & Water Watch said the report identified “major deficiencies” in HIMP, which it calls an ill-conceived privatization scheme. In addition to F&WW, unions representing meat inspectors oppose HIMP in both poultry and swine plants.
F&WW claims FSIS has spent $141 million on the PHIS system, which still has implementation problems.
Food Safety News
More Headlines from Government Agencies »
Tags: HIMP, Inspector General, swine slaughter, USDA
Source:
http://www.usda.gov/oig/
http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2013/05/ig-report-says-too-many-repeat-violators-in-hog-slaughter/#.UaV_UUA3uyC
GOALS, STRATEGIES, and PERFORMANCE MEASURES
Goal 1:
Strengthen USDA’s ability to implement safety and security measures to protect the
public health as well as agricultural and Departmental resources.
Goal 2:
Reduce program vulnerabilities and strengthen program integrity in the delivery of benefits
to individuals.
Goal 3:
Support USDA in implementing its management improvement initiatives.
Goal 4:
Increase the efficiency and effectiveness with which USDA manages and exercises stewardship
over natural resources.
Strategies:
For each of the above goals, OIG will:
Continuously monitor and assess risks in USDA operations and programs to identify those
risks critical to the achievement of our goals.
Target resources to address those critical risks.
Performance Measures:
OIG will measure its performance under each of these goals by tracking the:
Percentage of OIG direct resources dedicated to critical risk or high-impact activities.
Percentage of audit recommendations where management decisions are achieved within
1 year.
Percentage of audits initiated where the findings and recommendations are presented to the
auditee within established and agreed-to timeframes.
Percentage of closed investigations that resulted in a referral for action to the Department of
Justice, State/local law enforcement officials, or relevant administrative authority.
Percentage of closed investigations that resulted in an indictment, conviction, civil suit or
settlement, judgment, administrative action, or monetary result.
Goal 5:
Strive for a highly qualified diverse workforce with the tools and training necessary to
continuously enhance OIG’s ability to fulfill its mission and communicate its accomplishments.
Strategies:
Recruit, hire, train, develop, motivate, mentor, and effectively manage a diverse front-line,
supervisory, and executive workforce with the technical and workplace skills necessary to
facilitate succession planning and meet OIG’s strategic goals and annual plans.
Continuously acquire and deploy state-of-the-art technology, equipment, and other physical
resources necessary to enable OIG to meet its strategic goals and annual plans.
Enhance internal OIG communication so that all staff understands OIG’s priorities and the
contribution their work makes toward fulfilling OIG’s mission.
Use our performance planning and appraisal processes to ensure that all OIG staff are aware
of how their work ties to OIG’s strategic and annual plans, and that they are held accountable
for how their work impacts the organization’s results and how they personally support OIG’s
mission, vision, core values, goals, and performance targets.
Provide timely and reliable legal and management advice, reports, and services to support the
effective functioning of all OIG components.
Support the integrity of OIG operations by maintaining an effective quality assurance and
internal review program.
Effectively communicate the outcome of our work to Congress, agency management officials,
the press, and members of the public.
Performance Measures:
Satisfaction rates reported in staff surveys, including biannual Organizational
Assessment Surveys.
OIG performance against goals set in annual plans.
Performance of OIG management, legal, and quality assurance offices against timeliness
standards set for their functions.
Assessment of stakeholder and customer feedback solicited through interviews, surveys,
and other consultations.
IMPLEMENTATION OF THE STRATEGIC PLAN
This Strategic Plan is the first step in an ongoing strategic and tactical planning process laid
out in the Government Performance and Results Act and Office of Management and Budget
guidance. Within USDA OIG, we will track implementation of this plan and ensure
individual and office accountability for achieving our strategic goals by the following:
OIG will publish an Annual Performance Plan that sets specific targets for each of our
performance measures for the coming fiscal year; lays out the audit, investigation, and
management priorities for the year; and, where appropriate, discusses the specific projects that
will be performed, as well as expected initiation dates. OIG will publish a biannual Recovery Act
Plan that lays out specific targets for audit priorities and summarizes audit work to be performed.
OIG will report on its progress against the Strategic and Annual Performance Plans in the
Semiannual Report to Congress for the applicable fiscal year. The report will cover our progress
against the measures, priorities, and project initiation dates listed in the Annual Performance Plan
for the corresponding year.
OIG will also link employee standards and ratings to the Strategic Plan. Currently, OIG has tied
the performance standards of its Senior Executive Service members and its audit managers to the
OIG Strategic Plan. By the end of fiscal year 2010, we expect to link the performance standards
of every employee within OIG to the Strategic Plan.
By linking the Strategic Plan to annual performance plans and reports, OIG will be able to
maintain focus on the goals of the Strategic Plan while allowing enough flexibility to adapt to
ever changing circumstances, such as unexpected new priorities that could arise from natural
disasters, or the revised expectations of stakeholders (such as the shifting expectations regarding
necessary audit and investigative work that came about with respect to the Recovery Act), or
shifting Department priorities.
http://www.usda.gov/oig/webdocs/OIGStrat2010-2015.pdf
Food Safety and Inspection Service— Inspection and Enforcement Activities At Swine Slaughter Plants
Audit Report 24601-0001-41
Office of the Inspector General (OIG) audited the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) inspection and enforcement activities at swine slaughter
plants:
to determine if they complied with food safety and humane handling laws.
What OIG Found
A. The Food Safety and Inspection Service’s (FSIS) enforcement policies do not deter swine slaughter plants from becoming repeat violators of the Federal Meat Inspection Act (FMIA).
As a result, plants have repeatedly violated the same regulations with little or no consequence.
B. We found that in 8 of the 30 plants we visited,
i) - inspectors did not comply with inspection requirements (always examine the internal organs of carcasses in accordance with FSIS rules),or
ii)- did not take enforcement actions against plants that violated food safety regulations.
(No fines or closed plants)
As a result, there is reduced assurance of FSIS inspectors effectively identifying pork that should not enter the food supply.
(Result:contamination of the food supply!)
iii) - OIG also found FSIS could not determine whether the goals of a pilot program were met because FSIS did not adequately oversee the program.
{Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP)- based Inspection Models Project (HIMP)}
In the 15 years since the program’s inception,FSIS did not critically assess whether the new inspection process had measurably improved food safety at each HIMP plant, a key goal of the program.
iv)- Finally, OIG found that
- FSIS inspectors did not take appropriate enforcement actions
at 8 of the 30 (27%) swine slaughter plants OIG visited for violations of the Humane Method of Slaughter Act (HMSA).
OIG reviewed 158 humane handling noncompliance records (violations) issued to the 30 plants and OIG found 10 instances of egregious violations where inspectors did not issue suspensions.
As a result:
1 - the plants did not improve their slaughter practices, and
2 - FSIS could not ensure humane handling of swine.
FSIS concurred with all of our recommendations.
OIG’s Objectives were:
1) - to identify areas of risk in FSIS’ inspection of swine plants,
2) - to evaluate FSIS’ controls over food safety and humane handling, and
3) - to determine if appropriate enforcement actions were taken against violators,
plants that violated FMIA and HMSA.
OIG Reviewed:
FSIS inspects over 600 plants that have grants to slaughter swine.
OIG Reviewed:
FSIS inspects over 600 plants that have grants to slaughter swine.
For fiscal years 2008-2011:
1. OIG reviewed enforcement actions taken against these plants.
2. OIG also conducted site visits at 30 plants.
OIG Recommends:
1. FSIS needs to develop a strategy to take progressively stronger enforcement actions against plants with serious or repetitive violations.
OIG Recommends:
1. FSIS needs to develop a strategy to take progressively stronger enforcement actions against plants with serious or repetitive violations.
2. FSIS should determine:
i - what measurable improvement has the HIMP program achieved? and
ii - is it suitable as a permanent program?
3. FSIS should make a plan to:
i - minimize reliance on the inspectors’ judgment
(to reduce inspection risk)
ii - to ensure inspectors consistently enforce laws.
(i.e., take stronger enforcement actions against repeat offenders)
Source:
http://www.usda.gov/oig/webdocs/24601-0001-41.pdf
Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-friedrich/usda-inspector-general-fo_b_3333853.html
Source:
http://www.usda.gov/oig/webdocs/24601-0001-41.pdf
Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-friedrich/usda-inspector-general-fo_b_3333853.html
