11 Development of a list of the diseases that can be identified by each step in the inspection procedure. This list should be used to determine whether the steps are useful for protecting human or animal health, useful for detecting aesthetically objectionable conditions, necessary to protect consumers against fraud, or able to provide other identifiable benefits. Random sampling of retained or condemned carcasses and parts of carcasses in order to develop definitive diagnoses. These diagnoses can be used to establish baseline data on etiologies associated with each condemnation category and to provide material for pathology correlation sessions as continuing education for in-plant veterinary medical officers. Rapid, inexpensive screening tests to detect a broad array of chemical compounds and biological products that may be hazardous to the consumer. An adequate sampling plan, designed to protect the consumer from exposure to chemicals that are not randomly distributed across the country. Emphasis on hazard analysis and critical control points (HACCP), limiting inspection where the historic yield of violations is low and where public health risks are negligible. Documented assurance, backed by substantial compliance enforcement, of the sanitary wholesomeness of all meat and poultry products. Enhanced enforcement capability to impose a broad range of penalties upon violators, including refusal to inspect and approve their products. Adequate resources to ensure continued improvement of the technological base of FSIS, including the development of new inspection technologies to reduce cross-contamination of carcasses and more comprehensive assessment of toxicological hazards. • A mandatory system of initial and continuing education for inspection personnel that emphasizes food science, food technology, pathology, and public health, combined with a recertification program. • A substantial scientific and technical FSIS staff of respected scientists who play a substantial consultative role in the development of policy. The presence of standing advisory panels composed primarily of outside experts to provide consultation on both policy and practice regarding meat and poultry safety. Disciplines represented on these panels should include food science and technology, computer applications, microbiology, biostatistics, epidemiology, veterinary 12 medicine, toxicology, systems analysis, animal health, economics, marketing, nutrition, and risk analysis. Again, no one discipline should dominate any panel. All major regulatory proposals should be reviewed by standing advisory panels prior to finalization. Strong liaison between FSIS, CDC, the Food and Drug Administration, and relevant animal health agencies at the federal, state, and local levels to ensure that no hazards are overlooked. Substantial use of a rapid, timely, and flexible system (probably computer-based) to acquire, transfer, analyze, and make more widely available data related to inspection and to meat-borne hazards. The committee encourages FSIS to compare its program with these criteria and to establish a schedule for incorporating missing components as soon as feasible. Poultry The Basis for a Prepared by the Committee on Food and Nutrition Board NATIONAL ACADEMY PRESS Washington, D.C. 1987 CHAPTER 1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The production, slaughter, and distribution of broiler chickens (fryers) has become a major food industry that touches the lives of most Americans. Poultry products are currently consumed at a rate of well over 4 billion birds per year in the United States. Those products that pass through the inspection system required by law are, for the most part, wholesome. But because these products are potentially important vehicles of bacterial and chemical contaminants, the primary government agency charged with the oversight of poultry slaughter, the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), has for the past decade been attempting to improve the effectiveness of poultry inspection by studying, testing, and reviewing several modifications of the existing program. Its goal has been to develop a system that retains the bird-by-bird inspection mandated by law, incorporates new technological advances, and more directly addresses public health concerns. In 1983, recognizing the need to evaluate these proposed changes in inspection procedures, the Administrator of FSIS requested that the Food and Nutrition Board (FNB) of the National Research Council (NRC) examine the scientific basis of USDA's meat and poultry inspection program. The committee appointed to perform that task, the Committee on the Scientific Basis of the Nation's Meat and Poultry Inspection Programs, thoroughly evaluated current FSIS inspection programs. During the course of its study of those programs the committee observed that it could not find a comprehensive statement of criteria justifying inspection procedures, a systematic data base on contaminants, or a technically complete analysis of the benefits to human health resulting from the inspection process. That is, in general it found that it is not possible to determine from existing data whether current inspection programs actually fulfill their goal of protecting the public health. That committee considered whether to recommend a move to one of the newly proposed, less-than-continuous postmortem inspection systems but concluded that no such changes should be recommended until justified by a detailed risk analysis of the public health risks involved. It recommended that FSIS establish a risk-assessment program and apply formal risk-assessment procedures to assist in planning and evaluating all phases of poultry production in which hazards to public health might occur. 2 In response to that committee's assessment, which was published in 1985, FSIS requested that FNB conduct another study to develop a risk-assessment model for comparing the effects on public health that might result from different postmortem inspection goals and strategies, to evaluate the public health risks associated with broiler chickens, and to review the advantages of a sampling program as part of an overall quality assurance program for poultry slaughter. This report describes the findings of the Committee on Public Health Risk Assessment of USDA Poultry Inspection Programs, which was appointed to conduct the second study. The committee began its task by reviewing the ways in which traditional and new inspection procedures are related to public health. It soon decided that to evaluate poultry-related public health risks properly, it would be necessary to consider in addition to postmortem inspection various aspects of the poultry processing system outside the purview of FSIS, for example, growing conditions, preparation and handling, and cooking. Viewing the poultry processing system as a whole, the committee developed a conceptual risk-assessment model that could serve as a prototype for assessing public health risks associated with the entire spectrum of activities involved in poultry production, slaughter, processing, preparation, and consumption (referred to in this summary as the poultry system). It then evaluated the two most important health hazards associated with poultry--microbial and chemical contaminants--within the context of the model. The conclusions and recommendations described in the following paragraphs derive from the committee's qualitative application of the model to the available information on poultry health hazards. Since the current data base is essentially the same as that used in the 1985 report, the present committee did not conduct another comprehensive evaluation of the FSIS poultry inspection program but, rather, focused on developing the risk-assessment model and delineating how it might be used to evaluate FSIS programs. As requested by FSIS, emphasis in this report has been placed on the use of risk assessment as a tool for evaluation. Some aspects of risk management that may lead to solutions of risk problems by FSIS are briefly described in Chapters 3, 4, and 5. GENERAL CONCLUSIONS The committee concluded that a risk-assessment approach is needed to evaluate health hazards associated with poultry. Accordingly, it developed a risk model, which is divided into submodels representing five different phases of the poultry system. These submodels are The committee's report, Meat and Poultry Inspection: The Scientific Basis of the Nation's Program, was published by the National Academy Press. |