For instance, Congressman McIntire's bill says inspection shall be made not mentioning either ante or post mortem. I think with the history behind the present program that does give the authority. It gives more authority, certainly, than is presently available.

This is the section which is, of course, a prime section in the bill which gives the Department the authority to inspect. And as we see it, all bills give enough authority to inspect ante and post mortem as necessary.

And we are conducting post mortem on the bird-by-bird basis. And we are conducting some ante mortem inspections.

I do not know that I should comment any more on that. It has provisions for condemnation and disposal of condemned products, et cetera.

Mr. DIXON. How much of an undertaking is this ante mortem inspection?

Mr. MILLER. I think there needs to be some clarification of what is meant by ante mortem.

Mr. DIXON. Some of the bills call for that, don't they?

Mr. MILLER. Some of them say there shall be ante mortem procedure. Some say there may be as deemed necessary by the Secretary. We feel that "shall" is more compelling than "may."

We have conducted some ante mortem procedures. If you want to get into that I think it would be well to have Dr. Willie discuss that particular aspect of it. He is the technical man. I am not.

Mr. DIXON. How much of an undertaking is that?

Mr. MILLER. I personally could not see how it could be done, Mr. Dixon, without an additional inspector at all plants or practically all plants.

Mr. DIXON. Two inspectors, instead of one?

Mr. MILLER. Yes. And in some plants, of course, we have more than one inspector doing the post mortem work, 4 or 5 or 6 of them. There you would have to have one to do this ante mortem work.

There are some implications that all you would have to do is to look at the lot. Well, if that is satisfactory you can look at the lot of chickens as backed up to the loading dock.

These chickens do not stop in the processing procedure now. They are brought in in large trucks. They are backed up to the hanging line and immediately moved into the killing area.

So there is no place where there is a stop in the plant. It is quite different than the livestock procedures in which livestock moves through pens.

And it would require, if necessary to do it on each batch for example, of chickens, each group of chickens, it would require that they be stopped and rehandled and would require additional handling procedures in accordance with our present day methods of processing. Mr. DIXON. Are not some of the processors opposed to the compulsory ante mortem inspection?

Mr. MILLER. I would rather you would ask them. They will be here tomorrow. That would be my impression from what they said at the other hearing.

Mr. WATTS. As I understand the situation it would be the contention of the Department that the poultry, if it is put on the market, you want the inspection authority-you want authority to do ante mortem inspection if needed to be done.

You would like to feel your way along on that without being forced into it.

Mr. MILLER. That is right.

There is one other point I would like to make in connection with the ante mortem question. It is rather important.

The Department has a project under study. It is planned to study how to perform the ante mortem. What it would benefit, how it would benefit the post mortem and the whole inspection activity.

And I think we in the Department would like to continue to operate as we are presently until the results of that survey, that study, are gotten. That will be made by veternarian schools and poultry departments cooperating in several states.

I think we need that background before we move into some other area on the ante mortem question.

Mr. DIXON. May I ask another question?

Mr. WATTS. Certainly.

Mr. DIXON. How effective is the post mortem inspection in culling out unfit birds?

Mr. MILLER. Dr. Willie, will you comment on that?

Dr. WILLIE. Your question was how effective the post mortem inspection is?

Mr. DIXON. That alone, yes.

Dr. WILLIE. I would say it is very effective. We feel that we are giving full protection to the consumer and to the poultry plant worker in the handling of our post mortem operation.

Certainly, ante mortem inspection is an adjunct to post mortem inspection, but there are a number of considerations based on the plant operations over the number of years that we have been in this program that have not permitted us to perform an ante mortem inspection.

So, therefore, we have used only the post mortem inspection to determine the fitness of the poultry.

We feel under our present inspection program we have given complete protection to the consumers in so far as we are permitted to do so under the present operating circumstances that we have to live with in the poultry industry.

Mr. DIXON. You have permission to give ante mortem inspection in suspicious cases. Do you feel that would give the consumer sufficient protection?

Dr. WILLIE. We have permission, of course, to do ante mortem inspections now in our regulation. And we do perform ante mortem inspections where we feel that the benefits of making that inspection are sufficient to give the necessary protection, not only to consumers but to the workers in the poultry plants.

We have exercised that inspection in a number of instances. We have performed ante mortem inspections.

Mr. DIXON. Do you feel then that this bill would be sufficient protection to the public?

Dr. WILLIE. I think any bill that is written should provide for the Secretary of Agriculture to decide the extent and the type and the method of ante mortem inspection. I believe that should be left up to the Secretary of Agriculture.

I believe that we are in the best position to determine what type and how an ante mortem inspection should be conducted, those that are in the operating program.

Mr. DIXON. Without the additional expense and trouble of two inspections.

Dr. WILLIE. I did not quite get that question.

Mr. DIXON. In other words, is this flexibility that you ask for adequate protection to the public without requiring ante mortem inspection?

Dr. WILLIE. At the present time I would say so. The position the Department has taken, of course, is that an ante mortem inspection should be performed on poultry under a compulsory program.

Therefore, we have in mind an ante mortem inspection.

I think the extent and type of it should be left up to the Secretary of Agriculture, through his operating people, to determine the extent and the type of ante mortem inspection.

Mr. DIXON. Thank you.

Mr. WATTS. You will testify later on?

Dr. WILLIE. I have a statement, by the way, prepared on ante mortem inspection that I am prepared to read at any time.

Mr. WATTS. Mr. Anfuso has a question that he wants to ask.

Mr. ANFUSO. I understand you testified here this morning, is that correct?

Mr. BUTZ. Yes, sir.

Mr. ANFUSO. I am sorry I was not here but I read your statement. I wanted to congratulate you and your Department for the fair way in which you treat the farmers and consumers alike.

With respect to my particular bill I notice that you take some objection which I think can be remedied.

With respect to ante mortem inspection you say that should be left entirely to the discretion of the Secretary of Agriculture.

And I would agree with that.

There should be some kind of mandatory provision as to this ante mortem inspection according to mail which I have received, under the discretion which the Secretary of Agriculture would have, he could rule that ante mortem inspection would be fulfilled by an inspector simply observing a coop, a batch or a flock of live birds at the processing plant, before the stage of processing, and that any defective birds would be weeded out and closer examination later can be had.

This would not require a bird-by-bird inspection by the inspector nor would it be expensive or time consuming.

Do you care to comment on that? This would not be burdensome. Mr. BUTZ. It is my understanding that we now do that where our inspectors feel it is desirable to do so, we have ante mortem inspection. The thing we want to avoid is compulsory ante mortem inspection which might possibly require bird-by-bird handling which would raise the cost of this until it would be prohibitive, so high, it would not give you very much if any more safety than you now have with the type of ante mortem plus the post mortem.

Mr. ANFUSO. In other words, if the committee would recommend a bill which would leave that to the discretion of the Secretary your Department would be for ante mortem inspection?

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Mr. BUTZ. Yes, sir. In those cases where it appeared to be necessary to do so.

Mr. ANFUSO. Another thing my bill provides, according to the recommendations which I have received, is that a poultry branch separate from and equal in rank to the meat inspection branch in the Agricultural Research Service be set up.

This would give the industry a stature of one and at the same time would avoid the conflict of interest which might come if poultry inspection were put in the Agricultural Marketing Service.

Would you care to comment on that?

Mr. Butz. This is simply a question of administrative organization in the Department of Agriculture, Mr. Anfuso. We have now a separate Poultry Inspection Branch within the Poultry Division. That is headed by Dr. Willie here.

Where that fits into the administrative hierarchy of the Department I think is a matter of administrative determination by the Secretary. For all practical purposes we have a separate poultry inspection branch.

Mr. ANFUSO. Do you have it for practical purposes even though you may not call it that?

Mr. BUTZ. Yes, sir.

Mr. ANFUSO. Thank you very much.

Mr. WATTS. We will go ahead.

Mr. MILLER. There is one amendment on line 9 on this section on inspection where we propose to change "unwholesome or adulterated" to "unfit for human consumption."

That is the addition.

Subsection (b) of section 5 at the bottom of the page would prohibit the processing of poultry in any plant that is not inspected.

In other words, if a plant is operating 50 percent intrastate and 50 percent interstate its entire production would come under the inspection program.

Section 6, on page 5, gives the authority for the developing of the sanitation facilities and operating practices that would be required.

We now have a regulation, regulation 70, which is the result of many years of experience, and many conferences, and so on, that would be the backbone for the regulation controlling the sanitation requirements and facilities requirements and practices to be followed in the plant.

Mr. Bucy. Mr. Miller, I think in your statement with respect to (b) at the botom of page 4, I think you misspoke yourself in stating that this was a provision which prohibited them from handling poultry which was not inspected.

That particular paragraph directs the Secretary of Agriculture to refuse to render the service in any establishment whose premises and facilities and equipment or the operation thereof do not meet the sanitary facilities requirements of the act.

Mr. WATTS. That is section 6?

Mr. Bucy. That is section 5 (b).

Mr. MILLER. I beg your pardon. I was depending too much on my

memory.

Mr. WATTS. Refuse to inspect poultry that is killed in the establishment that does not comply with the provisions in section 6.

Mr. Bucy. That is right. If they do not have the inspection they cannot move it in interstate commerce.

Mr. MILLER. I misspoke. I apologize. Section 7 is the section on labeling.

Mr. JOHNSON. Would any processing plant now that has voluntary inspection meet the requirements of section 6?

Mr. MILLER. I do not think there is a bit of question about it.

Mr. JOHNSON. They would meet it?

Mr. MILLER. Yes. The standards are very high in the voluntary program.

Section 7 is the section on labeling. And we are proposing, as I indicated earlier, a little change here.

This would require that the shipping container be labeled with the inspection mark affixed and the number of the official establishment.

It would require that the immediate container, that is, the consumer package, contain additional information, which we could read here, if necessary, but it is the information that is required in the labeling section of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Act, etc.

The contents, the weight, if made up of more than one product, the constituents that are contained in it, and so on and so forth.

We are proposing to eliminate the necessity for the detailed labeling on the shipping container, by taking out lines 17, 18, and part of 16 and 19, on page 5.

We are proposing, also, to call the individual consumer package as spoken of in this section the "immediate container" which would be the container that the housewife would buy.

We are also proposing to redefine the shipping container.

Mr. JOHNSON. What is the reason for striking out those lines there? Mr. MILLER. So that it would not be necessary to put that type of information on the containers inside of the shipping container. It is not necessary there.

Mr. WATTS. All right, proceed.

As I understand that, you make the package that the housewife buys, delivered to the house, it will contain the identifying information rather than put it on the outside of the carton in which it is shipped.

Mr. MILLER. That is right. That is in accordance with Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act requirements. If the shipping container becomes the immediate container, for instance, ice packed poultry very often is just put inside of a box, 20 birds to the box or whatever, with ice around that, then that shipping container would have to contain the required information.

We have taken care of that by redefining "shipping container" and "immediate container."

Section 8 contains the prohibited act, and the first would be the prohibition against the processing, sale, or offering for sale, transportation or delivery of any poultry products unless that poultry product has been inspected for wholesomeness and unless the shipping and immediate container are marked in accordance.

We have changed the language in that section a bit to conform to our proposed changes on labeling. This would be the part of the act that would prohibit the interstate movement of uninspected poultry. There is a definition of poultry products, which is perhaps unique. I do not know that it is entirely unique, but poultry products are defined not to include dressed poultry. Poultry products will include