ing or adequate identification of poultry carcasses or parts or products thereof for distribution in commerce for purposes other than use as human food.

Require recordkeeping requirements for persons engaged in the business of processing poultry products for human or animal food, renderers, handlers of dead, dying, diseased or disabled poultry, and others engaged in the business of buying, selling, transporting, storing, freezing or packaging poultry products in or for commerce or importing poultry products.

Require persons engaged in business-in or for commerce-such as poultry products brokers, renderers, animal food manufacturers, wholesalers, and public warehousemen, as well as persons engaged in buying, selling, or transporting in commerce, or importing dead, dying, disabled or diseased poultry or poultry products to be registered with the Secretary, when required by his regulations.

Authorize regulation of the distribution in commerce or the importation of dead, dying, disabled, or diseased poultry and parts of their

carcasses.

Provide authority over the classes of operators described above who do not engage in business in or for commerce, when it is determined after consultations with an appropriate State advisory committee that the State does not have or is not exercising at least equal authority with respect to records, registration and distribution of dead, dying, disabled, and diseased poultry and parts of their carcasses.

Provide authority for USDA to seize or detain poultry or poultry products in violation of the act when such products are in transit or in storage outside of federally inspected establishments.

There has been a need for some time for more adequate tools of enforcement to checkmate the occasional unscrupulous operator who seeks to pollute the Nation's poultry supply with unwholesome or otherwise adulterated products. There is a potential-in the absence of more positive preventive measures--for dealers of unwholesome and adulterated poultry, renderers, animal food handlers, and others to divert unfit poultry into human food channels. The result could pose a public health hazard and destroy the confidence of consumers in the safety of our poultry supply.

As of now, we do not even have the authority to seize or detain poultry which we know is unfit for human consumption when it is outside of a federally inspected plant. USDA inspectors have no authority to intercept parcels of unwholesome or suspected products in transit or in storage. Their only recourse is to prevail upon State, local, or other Federal agencies to impound or seize goods outside of federally inspected plants. Surveillance over the collateral-type operations such as cold storage warehouses, wholesalers, jobbers, and so forth, is necessary to detect adulteration caused by mishandling, exposure to heat, inadequate freezing, adulteration by water or other substances, damage in transit, or other causes.

The additional authority to inspect poultry and poultry products outside of federally inspected plants and the authority to seize or detain such products which are found to be adulterated would reduce the possibility of consumers receiving unfit poultry to a minimum.

Under the proposal the Secretary would be given expanded authority to insure the proper labeling of poultry and poultry products and prevent the misbranding of such products.

The amendments would provide for:

Authority to prescribe the style and type used for required labeling. Standards of fill for containers.

Regulation to prevent the use of deceptive containers.

States would be precluded from imposing additional or different labeling or packing or ingredient requirements for federally inspected products.

Both industry and consumers would benefit from these changesgreater uniformity of labeling requirements-elimination of opportunities for fraud and deceit as a result these proposals-would greatly enhance the marketing of poultry and poultry products.

The bill authorizes denial of applications for Federal inspection to persons who, by their past actions, have demonstrated that they are unfit to engage in a business requiring a high degree of public responsibility. Such persons would include those convicted in any Federal or State court within the previous 10 years of (1) any felony or more than one misdemeanor under any law based upon the handling or distributing of adulterated, mislabeled, or deceptively packaged food, or fraud in connection with transactions in food, or (2) any felony, involving fraud, bribery, extortion, or any other act or circumstances indicating a lack of integrity needed for the conduct of operations affecting the public health. The Secretary would have the authority to deny inspection to such persons. However, provisions would be included for administrative hearings and judicial review to protect the rights of the affected persons.

The bill would make other changes of a housekeeping nature, and enhance coordination between the USDA's Consumer and Marketing Service and the Food and Drug Administration of the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare in making full, cooperative use of their respective powers to protect the consumer.

The bill would provide for punishment of anyone who assaults an inspector while in the performance of official duties. This is necessary to carry out an efficient inspection program. Inspectors must not have their safety placed in jeopardy.

Before I summarize the provisions I will take a moment to acquaint you with a recent study of inspected and noninspected poultry.

In January, poultry inspection personnel visited retail outlets to make carcass examinations of inspected and noninspected poultry. The study of inspected poultry was made in 34 stores in 16 States. There were 470 samples examined consisting of 447 whole poultry carcasses and 23 tray-packed carcasses displayed in cutup form. The primary inspection responsibility is to remove from food channels all carcasses or parts of a carcass which are unwholesome. The errors noted on the federally inspected product concerned ready-to-cook factors rather than errors which would render the carcass unwholesome. For example, feathers on a hock or a heart missing from the giblet pack would be recorded as an error in ready-to-cook factors. This would not affect the wholesomeness of the product to the point of being dangerous to the consumer's health. There were no lesions of disease observed. On the other hand, 316 samples of noninspected car

casses were examined in 37 outlets in the same 16 States where inspected poultry was checked. The samples consisted of 286 whole poultry carcasses and 20 tray-packed carcasses in cutup form. Only 18 percent of the noninspected carcasses appeared satisfactory following gross examination. One out of five should have been condemned as unwholesome. Errors found in the noninspected product but not in the inspected product were gross lesions of disease, septicemia, or toxemia which is symptomatic of disease, failure to remove infectious processes, and contamination of the body cavity with stomach contents or fecal material. Laboratory analyses conducted on both federally inspected and nonfederally inspected products revealed a higher level of bacterial contamination on nonfederally inspected products than on federally inspected products.

In summation, the original Poultry Products Inspection Act requires amendments to effectively regulate the modern, aggressive industry as we know it today and envision it in the future. The role of the States is not sufficiently recognized in the existing legislation to encourage their effective contributions to a viable network of coordinated programs. Strengthening of the national poultry inspection program is urgently needed.

The consumer must be able to buy her poultry products with confidence in their wholesomeness. More important, they must in fact be wholesome and honestly packed and labeled. The prosperity of the poultry processing industry and our Nation's poultry producers is greatly dependent upon this confidence being maintained and supported by effective regulation and inspection of the production of all poultry products to prevent adulteration and misbranding.

Our responsibility, therefore, is to insure that both Federal and State governments are provided with the necessary tools and resources to fulfill their responsibilities to protect the consumer in the manner she expects and demands. The proposals before this committee will accomplish this purpose.

My colleagues and I will be happy to respond to any questions you

have.

Mr. STUBBLEFIELD. Thank you, Dr. Mehren.

Are there any questions?

Mr. FOLEY. Mr. Secretary, I have some questions. I should like to refer to the matter of the report.

That report was made in January of 1968 ?

Dr. MEHREN. Yes.

Mr. FOLEY. And does it specifically detail the various aspects of poultry-inspection systems that were considered satisfactory or whole

some?

Dr. MEHREN. Yes.

Mr. FOLEY. Is there any reason that report should not be included in this record?

Dr. MEHREN. Not to my knowledge, except it is not finished.

Mr. FOLEY. It is available?

Dr. MEHREN. It will be available, as soon as finished.

Mr. FOLEY. I should like to ask that the report described by the Assistant Secretary be included in the record of the hearings this morning.

Mr. POAGE. Mr. Chairman?

Mr. STUBBLEFIELD. Yes.

Mr. POAGE. I hope that this is not what the gentleman wants to do. When you say "include this in the record," that means printing it in the record. I think that we pay about $100 or $200 a page to print these records. And you have to pay for that. When you simply include it in the files of the committee, you have it available to the members of the committee. I have no objection whatever to making it available to the members of the committee, I think it should be, but to go to the unnecessary expense of printing it a second time seems to me to be something that I at least would want to protest.

Mr. FOLEY. With all due respect to the distinguished chairman of the full committee, most of our hearings include testimony-including that of private enterprise groups that is sometimes repetitious of other testimony. What I would like to see is that the poultry inspection report be made available in the record for the committee and for the general public. If the chairman is opposed to it, of course, I would accede to the chairman's wishes in the matter. But it seems to me that the poultry report should be made available to the public through the committee. It cannot be so available if it is not in the record of the hearing.

Mr. POAGE. How long is the report?

Dr. MEHREN. It is not a very long report. I have the summary material ready.

Mr. POAGE. It is not very long?

Dr. MEHREN. The covering material would be about four pages for the federally inspected plants and about four pages, single spaced, for the nonfederally inspected plants, but those are summation pages.

Mr. POAGE. I would not have any objection to a report of not more than four typed pages, but to print one of those long reports, I would object. We have had this up many times in the full committee. Where people bring in something that is already an official document of the U.S. Government and ask to have it printed in the record, it seems to me to be an unnecessary expense and seems to me it is perfectly useless. The matter is already available. But if this is a matter of merely a summation, some four or five pages, there would be no objection to that on my part.

Mr. FOLEY. Would the gentleman yield?

The report is not finished yet, you say?

Dr. MEHREN. It is not finished yet.

Mr. FOLEY. It is not printed?

Dr. MEHREN. No, it is not; but it will be, it will be very shortly. There is no objection, on our part, to publishing all of it.

Mr. STUBBLEFIELD. Without objection, the report will be included in the record.

Mr. DOLE. The report or the summary?

Mr. STUBBLEFIELD. The summary will be included in the record. Mr. FOLEY. The eight pages that you mentioned?

Dr. MEHREN. Roughly, eight pages.

(The summary referred to follows:)

SUMMARY OF NONINSPECTED POULTRY CARCASS EXAMINATION

On January 3 and January 17, 1968, Poultry Inspection Personnel visited retail outlets located in 16 different States for the purpose of examining noninspected poultry carcasses for condition. During these visits, 37 different market places were visited as follows:

State:

Alabama

California

Georgia

Illinois

Outlets
visited

Birds

observed

4

3

3

2

6

1

1

1

3

1

121

37

316

The 316 samples examined consisted of 286 whole poultry carcasses and 30 tray-packed carcasses displayed in cut-up form. Eighteen percent appeared satisfactory following gross examination. A total of 491 errors were found on the remaining 259 samples. The defects rendering the carcasses not ready-to-cook and the number of each observed on the carcasses are listed on the attached sheet.

Hearts and livers not properly trimmed or separated and bile sac
not trimmed away

120 percent of the carcasses observed would have been rejected as unwholesome under Federal inspection, because of disease and contamination defects. (This percentage is approximate.)