USDA program leads to contaminated meat; packers urge workers to ignore safety procedures

A U.S. Department of Agriculture pilot program designed to speed up the rate of meat processing is leading to a higher rate of contaminated meat, Kimberly Kindy reports for The Washington Post. Faster lines make employees work harder and faster, and in some cases they have been strongly encouraged to ignore safety procedures by not slowing down or stopping production.

"The program allows meat producers to increase the speed of processing lines by as much as 20 percent and cuts the number of USDA safety inspectors at each plant in half, replacing them with private inspectors employed by meat companies," Kindy reports. But three of the five processing plants in the program "were among the 10 worst offenders in the country for health and safety violations, with serious lapses that included failing to remove fecal matter from meat." The contaminated meat was caught by government inspectors and never left the plants.

"USDA inspectors said company and government workers are yelled at, threatened and shunned if they try to slow down or stop the accelerated processing lines or complain too aggressively about inadequate safety checks," Kindy writes. "They also warned that the reduction in the ranks of government inspectors in the plants has compromised the safety of the meat. . . . Last fall, a Canadian beef-processing plant using the inspection system had to recall 8.8 million pounds of beef and beef products tainted with E. coli — about 2.5 million pounds of which went to the U.S. market. Canadian government safety inspectors said the faster line speeds were partly responsible for the contamination." (Read more)