Dr. SCHLOSSER. We will get a copy of that, and we will submit that, Senator.

Senator WILLIAMS. We would like to have the benefit of your advice or opinions that you and others can give.

Dr. SCHLOSSER. The first page of this statement goes more into detail.

Senator WILLIAMS. We certainly shall examine it.
Senator CLEMENTS. Thank you very much, Doctor.
(Dr. Schlosser's prepared statement is as follows:)

My name is Daniel B. Schlosser. I am a doctor of veterinary medicine and am presently employed by the Indiana State Board of Health as chief of the meat and poultry section, division of food and drugs. I have been employed by the State of Indiana for 9 years-2 years as veterinary inspector and 7 years in my present position.

I am also chairman of the meat and poultry committee of the Association of Food and Drug Officials of the United States and am appearing before this committee as the official representative of that organization. The Association of Food and Drug Officials of the United States is a national organization consisting of local, State and Federal food, drug, and feed regulatory officials charged with the responsibility of administering food, drug, and feed laws within their respective jurisdictions. At the State level, approximately half of these officials operate under the jurisdiction of State health departments and the balance are under the jurisdiction of State departments of agriculture or other State agencies. In some cases, State pharmacy boards administer laws regulating drugs and cosmetics.

The principal responsibility of these State and local agencies is that of protecting the health and welfare of the consuming public within their respective jurisdictions by preventing the manufacture, distribution, or sale of adulterated or mislabeled foods, drugs, and cosmetics. This includes, of course, poultry and poultry products. As a result of the vast increase in the interstate distribution of poultry and poultry products during recent years, it is becoming more and more difficult for these agencies to assure the consumers of these products that the poultry offered is derived from healthy birds and was slaughtered and processed under acceptable sanitary conditions.

The association feels, therefore, Federal legislation that would require the compulsory inspection of poultry and poultry products as a precedent to their introduction into interstate commerce and that would prohibit the movement in interstate commerce of diseased, unwholesome, or otherwise adulterated poultry would materially assist the members in the enforcement of their respective State and local laws and ordinances.

The members of the association feel that the principal problem in this field is essentially of a public health nature since the consumption of diseased poultry is not only repugnant but may result in the transmission of disease to the consumer. They believe that any Federal legislation seeking to control this problem should be administered by a consumer protective agency. This feeling is embodied in two resolutions formally adopted on May 7, 1956, by the members of the association at its annual meeting in New York. The resolutions read as follows:

(See p. 97 for the resolutions referred to above.)

The Murray bill referred to in the first resolution is S. 3176 and the Aiken bill is S. 3588. Since that time, Senator Murray has introduced S. 3983 which proposes that poultry inspection be administered by the Department of Agriculture as a part of its Meat Inspection Branch by creating within that branch a Poultry Inspection section.

I have been instructed by the Association of Food and Drug Officials of the United States to convey to the members of this committee the association's support of S. 3983 as it meets the criteria which we feel to be important for the protection of the health and welfare of the consuming public in this field. We strongly urge the committee to consider favorably the enactment of Senate bill 3983.

Senator CLEMENTS. The next witness is Mr. Shirley W. Barker, director, poultry department, Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America.

Come around, Mr. Barker.

STATEMENT OF SHIRLEY W. BARKER, DIRECTOR, POULTRY DEPARTMENT, AMALGAMATED MEAT CUTTERS AND BUTCHER WORKMEN OF NORTH AMERICA (AFL-CIO), CHICAGO, ILL.

Mr. BARKER. If the chairman will be patient with me, I will try to summarize my statement and limit it as much as I can—parts of it should be read. I should like to introduce the rest in the record. Senator CLEMENTS. You may proceed.

Mr. BARKER. My name is Shirley W. Barker. I am director of the poultry department of the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America, AFL-CIO, a labor union with 315,000 members and more than 500 locals in the 48 States, Alaska, and Canada.

I am grateful for this opportunity to express the views of our organization on mandatory poultry inspection. This topic of legislation has been of the deepest concern to us for more than 3 years. We consider mandatory inspection of poultry for sanitation and wholesomeness to be one of the greatest health needs of the American people today.

The AMCBW has more than 30,000 members working in the poultry processing industry throughout the Nation. As a result, we have firsthand knowledge of the problems confronting the poultry consumer, the poultry worker and the poultry industry.

That knowledge convinces us that immediate steps must be taken, for the safety of all groups, to stop the flow of filthy, adulterated, and diseased poultry through processing plants to market.

Today, the consumer is endangered by unfit poultry which he may unwittingly buy. The seriousness of this hazard is demonstrated by official data of the United States Public Health Service which holds poultry and poultry products responsible for an average of one-third of the food-poisoning cases reported each year.

The poultry worker in many plants is the prey of rashes, infections, severe illness, and death as a result of insanitary plant conditions and the processing of diseased poultry.

Only 3 months ago, the Portland, Oreg., area was in the throes of a severe psittacosis, or parrot fever, epidemic caused by turkeys. Two persons died and 62 became extremely ill. Many of these men and women were members of the AMCBW who work in poultry plants. The entire poultry industry suffers because of the lack of regulatory standards of sanitation and wholesomeness. The abuses in both product wholesomeness and plant sanitation do serious harm to those plant owners who maintain high standards. All processors are given a bad name and consumer confidence in their product suffers.

The poultry farmer also is harmed by the unhindered flow of diseased and contaminated poultry. As one farm organization testified before a Senate committee, the farmer is often blamed by the consumer for deficiency in a food product even after it has been processed. He

also suffers economically, for he depends on the continued consumer confidence to secure the increase in poultry markets, which he so desperately needs.

Clearly, something must be done. The consumer must be protected against diseased and filthy poultry coming from rodent-infested, refuse-littered plants. The worker, laboring in an already hazardous industry, must be safeguarded against illness and death from poultry diseases.

The honest, scrupulous processor must be protected against paying for the sins of shoddy operators. And the farmer must be safeguarded against loss of income.

We recall the history of health legislation in another of our union's industries, meat packing, and we find a similar situation. The problems posed by parts of the poultry industry today existed in the meat industry 50 years ago.

But mandatory inspection has virtually wiped out the health dangers, and has proved a magnificent boon to the public, the packinghouse worker, packinghouse management, and the farmer.

Congress and, at the moment, specifically this subcommittee can meet the problem. You have the power to stop the health hazards and economic dangers.

A cure is available in the form of enactment of a mandatory poultry inspection law-an act that will provide adequate and effective inspection for wholesomeness (including antemortem and postmortem inspection), plant and facilities sanitation and sanitary processing practices.

Early this year, such a measure was introduced in the Senate by Senator James Murray. That is S. 3176. The AMCBW, which for 3 years has campaigned for poultry inspection and sanitation legislation, has strongly supported that measure.

We believed then, and we believe today, that S. 3176 offers the maximum protection to consumers and poultry workers. It provides for effective inspection for wholesomeness and sanitation. It places the responsibility for this work in a truly consumer-protective and health-oriented agency-the Food and Drug Administration-which is part of a Department that has no conflicting functions-the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.

Hearings were held last month on this measure. At that time I presented a 60-page statement which treats the topic of mandatory poultry inspection in a comprehensive, detailed, and thoroughly documented fashion.

With your permission, Mr. Chairman, I should like to give a copy of this statement to each member of the committee, and also have it placed in the record.

Senator CLEMENTS. It will be placed in the record at the conclusion of Mr. Barker's statement.

Mr. BARKER. In the document I have given you, on pages 32 through 49, we discuss the operations of the current voluntary program of the Agricultural Marketing Service, United States Department of Agriculture. The operations of this agency must be scrutinized because suggestions have been made that a mandatory inspection program be placed under it.

We have found that:

(1) AMS is a marketing agency whose concern is not with the

consumer;

(2) AMS has proved itself extremely susceptible to industry pressure;

(3) AMS' inspection is sometimes thoroughly unsatisfactory to protect the consumer, as shown by the seizures made by the Food and Drug Administration and State and city health departments of products processed in its approved plants;

(4) A definite conflict of interests exists in its grading and sanitation program, and this conflict lowers the protection afforded

consumers;

(5) AMS inspection service and sanitation program are separate and sometimes in conflict with each other; and

(6) Attempts to improve the inspection system on all levels of the poultry inspection service have been and are penalized.

All of these points are supported by direct quotes from publications and reports from Government agencies, such as the Bureau of the Budget.

As I said at the beginning of the summary of this additional statement, the AMCBW believes that S. 3176 will provide the maximum protection to consumers and poultry workers. Only last week, our 19th general convention reiterated this stand. It again endorsed S. 3176 and its companion bills in the House of Representatives.

However, we note, Mr. Chairman, that important public health groups and consumer organizations now support S. 3983, a new measure introduced by Senators James Murray, Pat McNamara, and George Bender. Because of the stand taken by the Food and Drug Administration against assuming the duties of an inspection and sanitation program, these organizations believe that S. 3983 is now a more realistic measure than S. 3176.

I must admit, Mr. Chairman, we are reluctant to make the change to S. 3983. We still believe that the Food and Drug Administration, because its and its Department's sole interest is health and consumer protection, is the best center for a mandatory poultry inspection and sanitation program.

However, we have great confidence in the judgment of the Public Health and consumer groups which have appeared before you. If they believe S. 3983 will provide a good program for the protection of the consumer and poultry worker, we will support the bill.

We make this change-and again I say, reluctantly-in the hopes that this is the measure around which all groups can gather. The major complaint of the opposition to S. 3176 has been that the poultry program should be placed in the Department of Agriculture.

S. 3983 does provide for that and satisfies the complaint. We hope, therefore, that all groups will accept S. 3983, if not as the best measure, then as second-best, as we do, so that a mandatory poultry inspection law can be enacted in this session of Congress.

S. 3983 has four provisions different from S. 3176. Most important, it would place the inspection and sanitation program in the Meat Inspection Branch of the Agricultural Research Service.

The definition of an "inspector" in section 2 of S. 3983 should be amended. It names the inspector as "any person authorized by the

Secretary of Agriculture to inspect poultry and poultry products under the authority of this act."

We fear that this wording would permit the continuation of the very dangerous practice of the AMS voluntary inspection service in permitting plant employees to carry out some of the poultry program. We respectfully suggest that this definition be amended to make it clear that the inspector must be a qualified Government employee.

Another bill concerning poultry inspection is before this subcommittee. That is S. 3588, by Senator George Aiken. This measure was frequently referred to in the poultry bill hearings recently held before the subcommittee of the Senate Labor and Public Welfare Committee. Public health officers, representatives from public health organizations and other experts denounced this measure. They testified that many loopholes in the measure make it inadequate to safeguard the public.

In view of this judgment made on S. 3588 by men charged with the responsibility of safeguarding public health, we believe S. 3588 would not meet the dangers posed by filthy and diseased poultry. We accept the view of these authorities that the measure would not provide adequate and effective protection for the consumer and poultry worker. In summary, Mr. Chairman, the AMCBW believes a mandatory poultry inspection bill must have the following provisions:

1. Mandatory inspection for wholesomeness-both antemortem and postmortem.

2. Mandatory plant and facilities sanitation requirements and sanitary processing requirements.

3. Administration by an agency which has proved its sole concern to be health protection and consumer protection.

4. Cost to be met by the Federal Government through appropriations.

We believe S. 3176 best meets these points. However, in the hope that our stand will bring about the speedy enactment of a mandatory poultry inspection bill during this session of Congress, we shall support S. 3983.

Mr. Chairman, the foregoing statement was written prior to the opening of the hearing yesterday. The amendments to S. 3588 suggested in the testimony of Hermon I. Miller would alter that bill considerably. Some of the suggestions made by Mr. Miller, as well as some of the original provisions of S. 3588, as explained by Mr. Butz, appear to have substantial merit and might well be incorporated in the framework of S. 3983.

But we need time fully to develop our recommendations in this regard.

Senator CLEMENTS. Mr. Barker, there are two things.

First, I want to go back to the third item on page 13. You suggest the four provisions that should be in the legislation.

You said there:

Administration by an agency which has proved its sole concern to be health protection and consumer protection.

Do I get from that, since you express your support of legislation which would place this inspection in the Department of Agriculture, you mean the Meat Inspection Branch?

Mr. BARKER. Yes. At this time, that is correct.