This advertisement stressed the need to properly store, handle, prepare and cook all meat, poultry and seafood out of the refrigerator for more than two hours; wash hands thoroughly with hot soapy water before and after handling any raw meat; cook meat, poultry and seafood to at least 165 degrees.

The advertisement was placed in the newspaper by a large and reputable supermarket chain. That chain recently had to deal with an outbreak of illness by customers who bought frozen lasagna from its stores that was contaiminated with salmonella.

Mr. Chairman, this is a supermarket chain that takes pride in maintaining rigid quality assurance and sanitation procedures for its products. Nonetheless, they encountered a problem which made them realize that, while such procedures are vitally important, consumers must also be adequately educated about the safe handling of all perishable food-not just frozen lasagna, but all meat, poultry and seafood. I am concerned by recent reports that we need to look into our federal food inspection process. Much of the recent publicity surrounding such reports particularly concerns the inspection process for poultry.

But the problem cannot be adequately addressed by focusing on just one type of food alone. Perishable food is perishable food, whether it is poultry, meat, dairy or seafood. Just as the supermarket chain chose to address all types of food, we cannot fully help consumers by focusing only on poultry.

A recent check of major salmonella outbreaks over the past 10 years revealed a number of cases involving processed foods such as cheddar cheese, pasteurized milk, pre-cooked roast beef and chocolate bars.

The Food Safety Inspection Service, which oversees meat and poultry, has 8,000 inspectors, veterinarians and others who watch over 7,200 plants. But the Food and Drug Administration, which oversees processed foods, has the equivalent of 400 fulltime inspectors to oversee 60,000 plants.

I also recently learned that while the poultry industry is subjected to mandatory inspections of every single bird, the federal government has only a voluntary domestic fish inspection program in place that inspects little more than 10 percent of the fish and shellfish consumed by Americans each year. This is despite the fact that the Centers for Disease Control have estimated that as much as one-fourth of the outbreaks of food-related illnesses where the contaminating agent can be identified can be traced to seafood.

We are going to hear people testifying today that we need to improve the food inspection process. And I just want to say that if there are problems with that process, I feel very strongly that we need to correct them.

I'll be up front with you about the poultry industry in my home state. The industry is Arkansas' largest employer and is extremely important to the state economy. Even so, I do not believe that my state or the industry has anything to gain by an inspection process that does not give consumers full confidence in poultry products. I want and I believe the poultry industry wants the best inspection system we can possibly have. Clean processors have a vested interest in making sure careless processors do not give the entire industry a bad name.

For that reason, I welcome improvements in the poultry inspection process.

And, once again, another key element that must be involved here is the need for consumer education. Just as the supermarket chain discovered, rigorous quality assurance programs are not enough, because once a perishable product leaves the store, bacterial growth can still become a problem unless consumers are careful to handle the food properly.

The National Academy of Sciences underscored this point in a report issued this week on the government's poultry inspection program. The scientists who issued the report called for clear labeling that would instruct consumers how to properly handle and cook poultry products.

In short, Mr., Chairman, we must make sure the food we eat is safe. To do this, we make sure that rigid quality assurance and sanitation procedures are in place to protect the public and to retain consumer confidence. But we must also make sure attention is given to all perishable foods. And we must realize that there comes a point when quality assurance is not enough and that consumers must be educated about what they can do to ensure that the best efforts of industry and government are not made in vain.

Senator LEVIN. Senator Stevens.

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR STEVENS

Senator STEVENS. Mr. Chairman, I'm pleased to be here because of the fact that flowing through this hearing will be the word "salmonella." Now as a salmon lover, I've come to give just a little bit of a lesson, and then I hope I'll fade from the scene.

Salmonella is a bacteria that is pathogenic for man and warmblooded animals. It is not derived from salmon. [Laughter.]

It was named after Danial E. Salmon, an American veterinarian, and contrary to what my good friend just said here about chicken, I want you to know that I regularly eat raw fish. I love raw fish and you don't have the same problem in cold-blooded fish as you have in warm-blooded animals.

Now, we do have a problem downstream as far as decaying fish, which would be the same as any decaying of food, but not in terms of the bacteria that is present in warm-blooded animals.

Incidentally, we do have some seafood inspection problems and they are basically the problems of inspecting the mechanisms for preservation of fish rather than inspecting the fish themselves.

But I do hope that my friends who are looking into this problem will keeping my comments in mind, and it is a difficult problem for a State like yours, Senator. I remember some of the problems we have gone through with fish, mercury in fish and other things. We've weathered those storms.

But salmonella is not a disease of salmon. [Laughter.]

And I hope that if we can all agree on that to begin with, as I said, I will go on to my other hearing and I'll not have to stay here to defend my favorite food.

So I hope that you'll accept that statement, Mr. Chairman, and I will be back after that other hearing is over.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Senator LEVIN. Thank you very much, Senator Stevens.

Let me then reiterate at least two of the ground rules here. We are not focusing on any one product and salmonella is not a disease of salmon. [Laughter.]

Senator COHEN. Or Maine lobster. [Laughter.]

Senator LEVIN. Or Maine lobster.

We have the ground rules straight and I will call on our wit

nesses.

I thank all the Senators for their interest in this very important subject.

Our first witness today is Dr. Donald Houston, Administrator of the Food Safety and Inspection Service, which has responsibility for the inspection of meat and poultry.

Dr. Houston, it is a pleasure to have you with us here today, and we would appreciate your summarizing your statement. The entire text will be placed in the record, and I do apologize for calling the Food Safety and Inspection Service a different name a few moments ago. I know you and your good staff will forgive me for that and you won't tell anybody about it.

Dr. Houston.

TESTIMONY OF DONALD L. HOUSTON, D.V.M., ADMINISTRATOR, FOOD SAFETY AND INSPECTION SERVICE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE,1 ACCOMPANIED BY LESTER CRAWFORD, D.V.M., ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR

Dr. HOUSTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to take this opportunity to introduce Dr. Lester Crawford who sits to my left who is the Associate Administrator of the agency.

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee, I am pleased to appear before you to discuss productivity within the Food Safety and Inspection Service.

I'll just say parenthetically that was the thrust of the letter which was sent to me to discuss that particular area. So I'm going to spend some time there, and we'll speak to the salmonella issue at the latter part of the testimony.

We recognize that our No. 1 priority is to provide consumers with a safe and wholesome meat and poultry supply, but we also recognize our responsibility to the American taxpayers to ensure that their tax dollars are well spent.

Today I'll present an overview of the inspection program, including a description of our organizational structure, the changes we've made to modernize our program, the methods we use to ensure that inspection is carried out effectively and our plans for the future.

We realized long ago the potential for modernization and increased productivity within the inspection program. Over the last two decades the agency has felt the pressure to change from all sides, and we've had to respond.

Some of the loudest calls for change have come from a modernized meat and poultry industry. Productivity is on the rise, as industry has taken advantage of technological advances. Improved animal husbandry has resulted in better animal health. Particularly in poultry there is more uniformity in the birds presented for slaughter. Plants are using sophisticated technology, many plant operators recognizing the benefits that can be reaped from tighter control over their own production through use of quality control programs.

Pressure to modify the inspection program also came from Congress. While our budget has experienced a 12-fold increase over the past 25 years, from $30.5 million in 1960 to about $374 million in 1987, our costs have risen even faster.

A number of factors have worked to create this situation. Inflation is one. We also have had to take over a number of State inspection programs mostly because the States could no longer afford to operate them and the volume of product has grown significantly. Pressure to change came from within our own agency as well. With the rapidly increasing diversity of meat and poultry products in the marketplace, we realize several things. One, we didn't need to inspect every product the same way. Two, we didn't need to inspect for things that were no longer a problem. And, three, we needed to use new technology to our own advantage.

1 See p. 81 for Dr. Houston's prepared statement.

Before I describe the improvements we've made in the inspection program, I would like to provide you with a general description of the inspection program. The agency carries out its responsibilities under the authority of the Federal Meat Inspection Act and the Poultry Products Inspection Act. These laws protect consumers by assuring the meat and poultry products are wholesome, unadulterated and properly labeled.

Last year our inspectors examined 121 million red meat animals, almost 5 billion birds and supervised production of 67 billion pounds of processed meat and 60 billion pounds of processed poultry. In addition, we monitored inspection programs in 33 foreign countries and reinspected 2.5 billion pounds of imported meat and poultry.

In their search for unacceptable products, our inspectors condemned 378,000 red meat carcasses and 55 million birds. They also condemned 136 million pounds of processed products and refused entry to almost 13 million pounds of imported goods.

Our compliance officers made 53,000 reviews of businesses engaged in transporting, storing and distributing meat and poultry products during the last fiscal year. They detained over 22 million pounds of suspect products, issued over 1,600 letters of warning, filed 12 administrative actions to withdraw inspection and handled 33 cases that eventually led to convictions for violations of Federal inspection laws.

In support of these activities we have a highly skilled technical and scientific staff. This critical staff is responsible for managing a range of activities, including the development and testing of new inspection procedures as well as analytical tests for chemical and microbiological contamination. We also have three field laboratories and several small laboratories in Beltsville, Maryland, that last year analyzed approximately 120,000 samples of meat and poultry.

In-plant inspection activities by far require the greatest proportion of the agency's people and money resources. We have approximately 8,000 inspectors, veterinarians and food technologists stationed in over 7,200 meat and poultry plants.

In-plant inspection involves checking live animals before slaughter, carcasses after slaughter and the inspection of processed products in all stages of production. The in-plant inspectors represent the operational level for inspection. The inspector-in-charge at the plant provides first-line supervision to the inspection force. He or she deals with plant management to report on the status of operations in meeting USDA inspection requirements or to handle problems as they arise.

In large slaughter operations a veterinarian is usually the inspector-in-charge because his or her full-time presence and technical judgment is required. In small slaughter operations the inspector-in-charge may be a food inspector who reports to a veterinarian who is in charge of a number of smaller plants. The inspector-incharge in processing operations is usually a food inspector.

As you can see, FSIS is a very labor intensive agency. Out of our expected Federal operating budget of $338 million, about 86 percent of those funds is required for salaries and benefits. These figures exclude State grant money. Our next biggest expenditure is

for travel with over $18 million required to transport our inspectors and supervisors to and from their inspection assignments.

To give you a breakdown of our budget by program area, we've budgeted $213 million for slaughter activities, $93 for processing activities, $9 million for import-export activities, $23 million for laboratory services and $35 million for the grants to States program. We are fortunate that Congress has shown it's support for our program by consistently providing us with a budget that enables us to carry out these activities effectively. But we have received those much needed dollars only after close scrutiny. In fact, this careful scrutiny spurred us to find ways to do our jobs more efficiently.

Even as recently as the early 1960's staff allocations in the meat and poultry inspection program are made on the basis of professional judgment. Judgment worked well enough until we were called upon by Congress to justify the number of inspectors in our work force. We couldn't do it in any scientific manner.

That is when we introduced industrial engineering as a rational, consistent and equitable method of determining how many people we needed to do the job before us and how to distribute that work among individuals. We developed staffing standards that indicated how many inspectors were needed for slaughter plants operating at various speeds and how many inspectors were needed to do a certain number of tasks in processing plants.

At that time developing work standards was a significant step, but it turned out to be just a stepping stone to the changes that were ahead of us. Now that we had a way to relate amount of work performed to the number of inspectors, we began to explore ways to simplify the inspectors' work so that fewer inspectors would be needed.

Due to the incredible growth of the poultry industry and the fact that healthy birds were being raised, this is the area where we first began work simplification. We began studies on ways to simplify the work. Were there wasted hand motions? Could tasks be consolidated? For instance, for some diseases, we had visual and manual examination. Were both necessary?

Our first new poultry inspection procedure developed in 1978 was modified traditional inspection. It was a revolutionary procedure for us. We went from the traditional one inspector looking at one bird approach to a sequenced procedure where the inspection tasks were divided up among inspectors, as in an assembly line. The procedure also involved the use of mirrors so that the inspector could see the back of the chicken without having to turn it around, a step which previously took up to 50 percent of the inspector's time. This procedure was the backbone of our poultry inspection program for a number of years. At the same time, innovations were taking place in processing inspection. If slaughter is where the inspection system began, processing is where it is heading.

In the early part of the century, when our first inspection law was passed, relatively few processed products were made. However, in the past 20 years, production rose 20-fold. More than 1,000 different types of processed products are on the market, ranging from the familiar sausages and cold-cuts to frozen dinners.

To accommodate these developments, many manufacturers turned to quality control to assure consistency in their operations