the slaughterers and processors. In fiscal year 1955, the latest year for which actual data are available, the total expenditure for the inspection phase of this service was $2,200,000, of which $2,100,000 was collected as fees from slaughterers and processors.

The bill, if enacted, is expected to increase substantially the amount of poultry which is federally inspected. The collection of fees would offset the elimination or reduction of fees presently collected for the voluntary inspection service and simultaneously would avoid the necessity for a substantial increase in funds appropriated to carry on poultry inspection.

Establishment of a fee structure would be consistent with the intent of Congress as expressed in title V of the Independent Offices Appropriation Act of 1952. We believe that, if fees are to be charged, the legislation should authorize the establishment of a revolving fund by which the Department administering the program might use the moneys deposited to the fund as fees and charges without further legislative action.

In summary, the Bureau of the Budget, while in accord with the general objectives of the bill, recommends that the function be assigned to the Secretary of Agriculture and that the Congress consider the question of providing appropriate authority for the collection of fees.

DEAR SENATOR HILL: This is in reply to your request of February 13, 1956, for a report on S. 3176, a bill "To amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, so as to prohibit the movement in interstate or foreign commerce of unsound, unhealthful, diseased, unwholesome, or adulterated poultry or poultry products."

This Department recommends against enactment of this bill as now written, although it is sympathetic to the general objectives sought by the proposed legislation.

This bill provides for amending the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to prohibit the movement in interstate or foreign commerce of unsound, unhealthful, diseased, unwholesome, or adulterated poultry or poultry products. It makes provision for the establishment of a poultry inspection service as a division of the Food and Drug Administration, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. It requires that on and after January 1, 1957, all poultry must be subjected to an ante mortem and post mortem examination by inspectors of the poultry inspection service in order to be eligible for shipment in interstate or foreign commerce. It provides authority also for publication of rules and regulations regarding sanitation of premises, facilities, equipment and processing practices.

Under the broad authority of the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1946, and the Meat Inspection Act which was originally passed in 1906, this Department has been actively conducting many food inspection programs. These include both voluntary and compulsory inspection programs. All of these activities are carried on under regulations established by the Secretary of Agriculture under the various authorities provided by Congress to bring stability to the industries concerned and promote trade and commerce in the products of those industries through adequate inspection services. These include inspection services for meat and poultry designed to assure the purchaser that he is receiving a product which is sound, healthful, wholesome and fit for human food.

For more than 25 years, this Department has conducted a poultry inspection program on a voluntary basis. At present there are 280 poultry processing plants availing themselves of the service and paying about $2.4 million a year for its use. In addition, there is an appropriation of about $155,000 a year. Approximately 400 Department employees are engaged in the poultry inspection work. The core of this personnel consists of graduates from accredited veterinary schools.

The subject of compulsory poultry inspection has been considered by many segments of the poultry industry and there now is general agreement that

such legislation is desirable. However, both the Department and the poultry industry strongly feel that the administration of such an activity should be the responsibility of the United States Department of Agriculture as an extension of the voluntary program already in operation.

There are several other provisions of this bill with which the Department does not agree. The bill would put compulsory poultry inspection into effect all inclusively January 1, 1957. This would be impractical from the point of view of both the administering agency and industry. We believe that not less than 3 years' time should be provided to put such a compulsory act into operation all inclusively. In the much shorter time that is proposed in the bill, the administering agency would find it virtually impossible to recruit and train a qualified staff to carry on compulsory inspection work. It also would be impossible for those plants which would need to make alterations in construction and plant facilities to come into timely compliance with the regulations concerning facilities, equipment, and operating practices which might be required. Certain sections of the bill embody much restrictive detail that would actually hamper proper administration, as for example, in the sections dealing with ante mortem examination and post mortem inspection. More desirable would be a provision 1equiring that ante mortem and post mortem inspections be provided by the Secretary of Agriculture under such rules and regulations as he may from time to time find necessary to effectuate the purposes of the act. The Bureau of the Budget advises that there is no objection to the submission of this report.

Sincerely yours,

TRUE D. MORSE, Acting Secretary.

Senator MURRAY. Our first witness today is Mr. John L. Harvey, Deputy Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration.

Mr. Harvey, we are very happy to have you with us today. You may come forward and take a seat at the desk.

STATEMENT OF JOHN L. HARVEY, DEPUTY COMMISSIONER OF THE FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE

Mr. HARVEY. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, my name is John L. Harvey, Deputy Commissioner of Food and Drugs. I regret that Commissioner Larrick was unable to be here to testify as to the views of the Department on S. 3176, the poultry-inspection bill.

The Department is strongly in favor of the enactment of a workable, effective law which will establish an adequate inspection service to insure the wholesomeness of poultry sold to the public as a part of our food supply. There is a clear and present need for such an addition to our food laws. This conclusion is drawn from the investigations of both the Public Health Service and the Food and Drug Administration and is conceded by substantial segments of the poultrypacking industry.

We feel that an adequate and effective inspection program must, as envisioned by this bill, include ante-mortem inspection of the live birds to every extent necessary to guard against infection of plant workers and prevent transmission of disease to consumers through both handling and eating poultry.

Moreover, in order to be thoroughly workable and effective, and at the same time least burdensome to the industry, the substantive standards of the bill stating the conditions under which poultry and poultry products shall be entitled to pass inspection, or shall be considered nonpassable, should meet as closely as feasible with the standards of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act governing these

and other foods. The provisions of this bill defining the term "adulterated" would seem to meet this requirement.

It is only by such conformance that confusion and inequity can be avoided and that the intolerable situation of having two different standards can be escaped. There can be no assurance of accomplishing the purposes of the inspection without firm and positive definitions and guidelines in the law.

In these and other substantive respects, the bill is, basically, wellplanned, and provides a sound framework to accomplish its desirable objective, though, as I shall bring out, some substantive modifications are desirable.

However, for two important reasons, we believe that this program, instead of being placed in the Food and Drug Administration as proposed by this bill, should be placed in the Department of Agriculture. In the first place, we feel that this is good commonsense. That Department is already charged with administration of the Federal Meat Inspection Act, which is the only existing mandatory inspection program for meats and meshes with the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.

Thus, it would be possible for the Secretary of Agriculture to utilize the vast experience and know-how which has been developed in the meat-inspection program over a period of 50 years and to establish and maintain uniformity of enforcement policy as between poultry and the other meat products.

At the same time, inclusion, in the bill, of the substantive principles of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act in setting up special inspection for this one class of goods, would, without placing the inspection program in the Food and Drug Administration, tend to maintain consistency with our own regulatory and enforcement activities in relation to poultry and other foods; and this, together with utilization of procedural features like those employed under the Meat Inspection Act, should serve to preserve the judicial decisions that have been made under these acts during the past 50 years and which with the acts themselves and the decisions thereunder establish firm and certain guidelines and requirements and should reduce uncertainty as to interpretation arising out of any lack of specificity in the requirements.

The experience under these two acts provides a readymade framework for the creation and development of a program for poultry inspection that should insure a first-class effective job in the consumer interest and bring this objective to a point of attainment in the quickest fashion.

There is an additional reason why we believe that it would be desirable to place the program where we have suggested, that is the Department of Agriculture. We are appreciative of the compliment paid to the Food and Drug Administration by the sponsors of this bill in their proposal that the provisions of a poultry inspection service be carried out by us.

We have always stood ready to assume any responsibility in the field of food law enforcement which is within our power to accept and to carry it out to the best of our ability. However, in all candor the Food and Drug Administration is not presently in a good position to develop a poultry inspection service of the magnitude indicated by this bill.

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Following a study of our operations and functions by a citizens advisory committee and acting under the recommendations thereunder we are engaged in developing a program of expanding activity which eventually, it is hoped, will reach thorough and adequate coverage of all foods and drugs.

In addition to the problems involved in developing such an expanded organization we also must concern ourselves with as much day-to-day enforcement of the general provisions of the food and drug laws as is possible under the resources available to us in order to give to the public the full measure of protection we can give on all the products of this nature that they buy.

This is not, Mr. Chairman, a case where the Food and Drug Administration is the only organization of the Government that can perform the proposed task. The Department of Agriculture, which as you know has the only existing mandatory inspection program for meats of any kind, has carried out inspection of red meat in an excellent fashion and done a fine job on red meat for a period of over 50 years. Finally, I should like to invite attention to two substantive amendments that seem to us to be desirable. The chairman has already spoken of at least one of these.

Provisions are needed to exempt farmers who raise and sell only their own poultry to household consumers as a usual farm-to-household transaction.

In addition, as we understand is being recommended by the State Department, provisions are also needed to permit imports to be brought into this country under circumstances that would be consistent with our international agreements and that would insure that imported as well as domestic poultry will be of a quality that is wholly acceptable. Senator MURRAY. Mr. Reidy of the staff, who has made a very careful study of the matter, would like to ask you some questions, Mr. Harvey.

Mr. HARVEY. Very well, sir.

Mr. REIDY. Just to have our record clear, will you give us a statement of the overriding mission of the Food and Drug Administration? Mr. HARVEY. It is our duty, under the terms of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to maintain a regulatory inspection over the production and distribution for Interstate Commerce of all foods, drugs, medicinal, or therapeutic devices and cosmetics that are produced and sold in interstate commerce, import commerce, or export commerce in the United States.

That involves inspection for wholesomeness, for compliance with the technical features of the food and drug law, and for labeling and, in some instances, special packaging requirements. That inspection is of a regulatory nature, and it does not involve stationing inspectors in the plants and inspecting each item as it is processed or produced. Mr. REIDY. We could brief that, I presume, by saying it is your function to protect the public health. Is that your basic responsibility? Mr. HARVEY. It is the protection of the public health, and the public pocketbook, as well.

Mr. REIDY. And its pocketbook?

Mr. HARVEY. Yes, sir.

Mr. REIDY. Would you regard a proposal for compulsory inspection of chickens as a measure to promote the public health or to promote agriculture?

Mr. HARVEY. It is a measure to effectively inspect poultry at packinghouses or point of production. That is most assuredly a public health measure. It inevitably, if carried out correctly, has the effect of protecting the public health.

Mr. REIDY. The Food and Drug Administration, of course, does a good deal of inspection nowadays. Could you give us some idea of the number of products or the types, or categories of products which you inspect?

Mr. HARVEY. Yes; I might say that the market value of the food supply of the Nation, which is generally subject to inspection under the food and drug law, is about $67 billion, of which around $2 billion is poultry,

Now, the commodities that are involved are everything that you eat, Mr. Reidy.

Mr. REIDY. Including poultry?

Mr. HARVEY. Yes; there is red meat that is included only to the extent that the Meat Inspection Act does not apply, but laws of the type that we have before us proposed here, and like the Meat Inspection Act, deal firmly with the condition and wholesomeness of the food product at the time of inspection. But these products are perishable in nature and in many instances there comes a time when it is still the Food and Drug Administration's job to deal with it in the channels of commerce and trade when it may have changed its conditions.

Mr. REIDY. When you do undertake any inspections into any of this multiplicity of products, do you invariably use personnel that are in the employ of the Food and Drug Administration, or of the Federal Government?

Mr. HARVEY. With the exception that the Secretary is empowered to commission food and drug officials and health officials of the various States and Territories as commissioned officers of the Department for the purpose of making investigations under the act as may be directed by the Secretary.

Mr. REIDY. Any investigations made by the Food and Drug Administration would be made by Government employees, either Federal, State, or local employees?

Mr. HARVEY. That is right.

Mr. REIDY. There are no instances, are there, in which the manufacturer or distributor of a product who is being investigated hires the investigator?

Mr. HARVEY. None whatsoever; no, sir. It is entirely a regulatory program.

Mr. REIDY. And no instances in which the owner of a plant which is under inspection could, himself, be the inspector?

Mr. HARVEY. Not under the food and drug law; no, sir.

Mr. REIDY. Your inspectors, when they are on the job, do they have the power to condemn?

Mr. HARVEY. No; they do not. The regulatory affirmative actions taken under the law must utilize the United States Courts.

Mr. REIDY. They can immediately stop the movement into commerce of anything that they feel would come under the ban of the Food and Drug Act?

Mr. HARVEY. An inspector, you mean, in a summary action?
Mr. REIDY. Yes.