like to point out that consolidation does not necessarily result in savings. In some instances consolidation actually becomes more expensive.

The USDA has recently moved to consolidate county and State offices. As a result, 936 offices in counties have been consolidated and offices in 14 States are in the process of moving.

Over the past 3 years PMA has been continually working toward the consolidation of all PMA activities in each of the 5 regional office cities, that is Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, San Francisco, and New York. In Atlanta the consolidation is complete. In the other 4 cities 75 to 90 percent of the consolidation has been effected. Also, within PMA the Livestock Branch has had a continuing movement underway to consolidate all that Branch's activities under one roof in every city where such is possible. This move is practically complete. The Poultry Branch is also working toward consolidating their field offices.

Consolidation cannot be effected between many branches because their offices must be located near the point where their work is performed. For instance, in Chicago the Livestock Branch must be near the livestock yards, whereas the Dairy and Poultry Branches must be near the dairy and poultry markets and many miles separate these two markets; therefore, consolidation in such instances is not practical.

(i) On page 23, the report indicates that meat inspectors might be selected and trained to perform small meat-grading assignments at their station in order to save the grader's time and travel cost involved in reaching the station. This problem has been given thorough consideration in times past and the suggested solution is considered impractical from several standpoints. The principal reason is that meat inspectors are not qualified to do meat grading. Among the minimum qualifications required of a meat grader is at least 4 years' experience in the grading of meats on a wholesale basis. (The 60-day course in general food inspection and grading work used by the Army does not meet the minimum requirements for this work which we regard as essential.) Despite the aptitude of some of our meat inspectors for grading assignments, we feel that the time necessary to qualify a meat inspector for this particular work would be much more expensive than paying the travel time of a meat grader to the particular point. Even if time were taken to train a meat inspector to do meat grading, other difficulties would make this arrangement impractical. The meat-grading service requires very special and direct supervision which cannot be supplied by the Meat Inspection Division. Consequently, the meat inspector doing meatgrading work would be attempting to serve two different supervisors. Also, a meat inspector, trained for meat-grading work and located in a position where he might do meat grading, is subject to be transferred at any time. If a regular meat grader is stationed at the new location, the value of his special training would be largely lost. Under normal conditions, that is, in the absence of price ceilings and mandatory grading, there are comparatively few locations where meat inspection is conducted at any considerable distance from the point where a meat grader is stationed.

(j) We regret that the report did not develop further the statement on page 24 to the effect that there is a lack of confidence in the poultry grading and inspection services by public health and consumer groups. Following a recent meeting with a group of public health officials, the Poultry Branch has formed an advisory group consisting of 6 public health officials and 6 industry representatives to discuss and advise on mutual problems. One meeting of this advisory group has already been held and indications are that this cooperative approach will be very helpful in developing a high degree of confidence in these programs. The rapid rate of increase in the use of these two services seems to indicate they have already gained a high degree of acceptance. Such acceptance, it is true, is on the part of commercial poultry interests. However, these interests would not be likely to incur the added cost of these services except to meet consumer demand.

(k) We wish to comment about the label used to identify "dressed" poultry which has been processed under USDA sanitary standards. This is covered in the last paragraph on page 24 of the report. The Department's regulations governing the grading and inspection of poultry require that poultry which bears United States grade marks or United States inspection marks shall have been processed in accordance with prescribed sanitary standards during all stages of processing. Some processors perform all processing functions whereas others prepare only "dressed" poultry. So that such "dressed" poultry may move into plants for further processing under Federal supervision, provision is made for its certification of having been processed under USDA sanitary standards. It

is in connection with this phase of the program that the label is used which reads "Processed under USDA Sanitary Standards--Not USDA Graded for Quality or USDA Inspected for Wholesomeness." The label is intended solely for identification purposes and is applied only to bulk packages or shipping containers of "dressed" poultry. Individual birds or consumer packages are never labeled with this mark. It is highly improbable that the consumer can ever be misled by this label since she will never see it. The Department currently is engaged in further study of poultry grading and inspection.

(NOTE.-Exhibit II, regulations governing the grading and inspection of poultry and edible products, is on file with the committee.)

Senator CLEMENTS. Now, Dr. Carpenter, you may proceed.

STATEMENT OF DR. CLIFF D. CARPENTER, PRESIDENT, INSTITUTE OF POULTRY INDUSTRIES, CHICAGO, ILL.

Dr. CARPENTER. Thank you, Senator. My associate on my right is Frank G. Wollney, Field Service Director.

I am Cliff D. Carpenter, president of the Institute of American Poultry Industries, Chicago, Ill. I am a graduate veterinarian; in fact, the first veterinarian in the United States to have a private practice exclusively limited to domestic poultry. I have been associated with the poultry industry for 36 years. I have served as chairman of the poultry committee of the American Veterinary Medical Association and as chairman of the poultry disease committee of the United States Livestock Sanitary Association.

The Institute of American Poultry Industries is a nonprofit organization, chartered by the State of Illinois nearly 31 years ago. Its membership includes processors and distributors of poultry products, and in addition, producers, breeders, hatcherymen, and other allied interests. More than 90 percent of our processor members are smallbusiness men, many of them family operations which have developed through the years and grown up with the industry.

We favor Senate bill 3588. In our opinion, sound, mandatory poultry-inspection legislation will benefit consumers, producers, and the poultry industry in general, because it will provide the consumer with added assurance that the poultry she buys is a wholesome product that has been prepared under sanitary conditions. We also feel that the increasing volume of poultry shipped interstate has heightened the need for uniform regulations governing such movement which will receive recognition by the various States and municipalities.

Several years ago, the institute established a study committee on mandatory inspection for wholesomeness. This committee unanimously recommended to the institute's board of directors that we take a position for mandatory inspection for wholesomeness. The directors adopted this recommendation unanimously, it was referred to the entire membership, and 95 percent of the votes from members supported the directors' recommendation. That resolution is herewith quoted verbatim:

The Institute of American Poultry Industries continues to encourage and support one of its chief, original objectives, namely, the utilization of every sound means to give the consumer a better product and the producer a better market. In furtherance of this longstanding objective of the institute, its board of directors and its members favor the development and adoption of sound, mandatory inspection for wholesomeness programs for all poultry and poultry products, provided such programs are paid for from Federal and State funds.

This action in itself demonstrates the poultry industry's keen interest in both the consumer and the producer. However, I would like to present some additional background information on the type of work performed by the institute and the activities supported by its members, which further indicate industrys' longstanding interest in wholesome, high-quality products.

Going back to the early days, the institute played a prominent part in helping the industry convert from the shipping of live poultry across the country to distant markets to the New York dressing type of operation. This advance brought the consumer higher quality poultry and reflected a greater return to the producer. Later, through still greater technological advances, the poultry industry moved from the New York dressed era to the fully eviscerated, readyto-cook, modern type of operation, until today about 90 per cent of our total output is fully eviscerated before it reaches the retail store, restaurant, or other institutional user. Much of this progress was made, too, under the most difficult conditions existing during the 4 years of World War II, with its serious shortages in manpower and equipment.

During the 10 postwar years, the poultry processors of this Nation, on a voluntary basis, have invested an estimated half-billion dollars in modernizing and improving their plant facilities and operations. We are currently spending about $212 million a year for voluntary Federal poultry inspection. In fact, this industry has probably spent more than any other food industry in attempting to give the consumer a wholesome product and one in which she can have complete confidence. Our purpose here today is to get an adequate, sound, and competent inspection program under mandatory Federal legislation. In changing from New York dressed to ready-to-cook, poultry processors have assumed a responsibility and task that formerly was undertaken in the consumer's kitchen. The institute has always vigorously promoted sound sanitation in the processing plant, and today's modern operation is kitchen clean, with modern equipment, tile walls, cement floors, and adequate drainage, ventilation, lighting, and cleaning and other sanitizing procedures.

All of these improvements made by the processors, along with the tremendous strides made by growers, feed manufacturers, breeders, and the refrigeration industry, have been instrumental in virtually doubling the per capita consumption of poultry during the past 17 years. The high consumer acceptance of this increased output of poultry products certainly indicates that the public has been getting a fine product and not, as some claim, one of questionable whole

someness.

From an era of a "farmyard operation" the poultry industry has moved into perhaps the fastest growing major food enterprise in the Nation. Poultry products now reflect the third largest agricultural income in the country. Three of the ten fastest growing food items in the American market basket today come from the poultry industry; in fact, frozen and canned poultry have become the second fastest growing food item in the United States. Sales of poultry products at the retail counter are valued at more than $6 billion a year. Out of every consumer's food dollar, eleven and a fraction cents are spent for poultry products.

In addition to improvement work in production, procurement, and processing, the institute devotes a great deal of time and money to research connected with poultry product improvement at all levels. Our research council is composed of more than 50 of the Nation's leading poultry scientists, including personnel from universities and landgrant colleges and the United States Department of Agriculture, as well as industry technologists. Our merchandising program deals with quality maintenance, including such important factors as packaging, refrigeration, and distribution. For the last 4 years, the institute has held regional sanitation schools for poultry processors, and in 1952, we published a sanitation guide which has been widely distributed and sought after not only by industry but by various Government agencies, including the quartermaster general and public health officials.

Nearly 5 years ago, it became apparent that there was a serious need to coordinate our expanding, increasingly important, poultry marketing operations, with the various health and sanitation requirements and regulations at Federal, State, county, and municipal levels. Conflicting requirements among different localities had already caused some interference with the growing movement of poultry interstate, even from the USDA inspected plants, and both industry and the consumer were faced with the prospect of additional costly, unjustified trade barriers.

At that time, the institute urged the United States Public Health Service to establish, with the institue, a liaison group, half from Public Healh and half from industry, to study this problem. Our suggestion was adopted, a liaison group was formed, and just about a year ago, the United States Public Health Service published a uniform sanitation code for poultry processing which represented the combined efforts of industry and Public Health.

This industry is justifiably proud of the great record it has made and is now making. Obviously, it is not without problems, however. Several years ago, ornithosis was found in some of the turkey flocks in one of the important turkey-producing States. Since ornithosis is not transmissable to humans through consumption, it has no consumer significance in the light of all scientific facts known to date. However, it does present an occupational hazard to processing plant workers. For this reason, the various industry interests involved asked the institute to take the lead in working out a solution to the problem.

A program was developed and techniques established to protect plant personnel. The industry secured the services of Dr. K. F. Meyer, the world's authority on ornithosis, to meet in Washington with representatives from the Food and Drug Administration, the United States Public Health Service, the Quartermaster Corps, the United States Department of Agriculture, and the institute, to discuss the implications of ornithosis. Shortly following this meeting, Mrs. Hobby, then Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, issued a press release stating that there was no consumer hazard involved and recognized the carefully controlled program which the industry had put into effect. A national committee was formed, to work with any similar outbreaks if and when they occurred, and to foster organized research in this field.

It should be pointed out here that industry found the AMS poultry inspection personnel most cooperative and helpful in meeting this problem. În plants where suspect turkeys were involved, the AMS inspection people contributed their practical knowledge of poultry pathology to help safeguard the health of the plant workers and to otherwise cope with the problem. This seems an appropriate place to commend the AMS for the excellent poultry inspection services it has provided on a voluntary basis. We know of no instance where poultry has ever been seized because it was not wholesome at the time the United States Department of Agriculture inspection legend was placed on it. It is important to note, too, that the uniform sanitary code published by the United States Public Health Service was based on the regulations governing AMS poultry inspection.

Much of the testimony on S. 3176, as well as of the testimony given June 18 and 19, on the bills now under consideration, leaves the impression that when consumers buy poultry today, they are risking their health. This is far from the truth. In a recent hearing before a House Appropriations Subcommittee, Congressman Fogarty, of Rhode Island asked Mr. Larrick, Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration-and I quote the record:

What about these outbreaks that I have heard about, caused by eating chicken? Do you know anything about them?

To this Mr. Larrick replied:

We haven't been able to establish any firm cases where a person contracted a contagious diease from the consumption of diseased poultry.

In other testimony concerning mandatory inspection, it has been reported that about 25 percent of the food-poisoning cases may be attributed to poultry and poultry products, leaving the impression that uninspected poultry is to blame for these outbreaks and that mandatory inspection for wholesomeness, these food-poisoning cases will be eliminated. This simply is not true. As in the case with other food products, most of these food-poisoning cases result from negligence in handling the food after processing. Poultry is a widely used, utilitarian food that lends itself admirably to creamed dishes, sandwiches and salads. Further, many birds are stuffed before baking or roasting. If such dishes are not properly refrigerated or properly handled after cooking, illness can follow, the same as with other foods which are mishandled.

It is our opinion that a sound workable mandatory inspection law would give the consumer added assurance that the product she buys is wholesome and sanitary. The consumer has very right to this assurance, and no one is more interested in seeing that it is provided than the poultry industry itself.

Testimony has been offered emphasizing the need for placing mandatory inspection under qualified veterinary supervision. We agree fully with this thesis. During the 12 years I have served as president of the institute, I have been intimately familiar with the inspection service, its functions, its personnel, and its administration. Under the Department organization, the Poultry Division is responsible for the inspection for wholesomeness service. The service is organized in a Poultry Inspection Branch, headed by a highly quali

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