As alarm bells sounded for the second-largest hamburger recall in history, about 250 of the nation’s top food safety officials were in Miami setting the “course for the next 100 years of food safety.”
That so many U.S. Department of Agriculture field supervisors were in Florida while New Jersey-based Topps Meat Co. was scrambling to recall 21.7 million pounds of hamburger has rankled some USDA inspectors and food safety advocates.
Several USDA inspectors said in interviews that their workloads are doubling or tripling as they take on the duties of inspectors who have left the department, not to be replaced.
The legal requirements for inspections, combined with a reduced force, mean that the inspection goals have not been met for years, according to inspectors. They say the workload is unrealistic, reducing their duties to cursory checks of company records, not the physical examination of meat, poultry and eggs.
[…]
Thus, she said, the patrols are counted as an inspection because of the possibility that inspectors could show up.
I think I’ll try that with the company I work for. Count my day off as a work day because I ‘could’ have shown up.
please go back and read the history of the food industry before regulation and note that spoiled, nasty and outright poisonous food is exactly what you can expect when they are not regulated.
look at china now — they have no regulation, and so cheaper, poision materials are routinely used
WAKE UP YOU STUPID ASS CONSERVATIVES — REGULATION IS NECESSARY FOR THE SAFETY OF YOUR CHILDREN, JUST AS SURELY AS IS A STRONG MILITARY YOU PENNY-PINCHING HALF-WITS
FSIS, which regulates meat, poultry and egg production, says it had 7,200 inspectors in 1992 and 7,450 now.
“FSIS ended [fiscal year ’07] with the highest number of in-plant employees since 2003,”[FSIS spokeswoman Amanda] Eamich stated. During the year, FSIS was approved “for more in-plant inspectors than at any time since 2003
…
Stan Painter, an inspector and union representative for the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents the inspectors, said the actual number of inspectors is closer to 6,500.
The difference, he said, are unfilled vacancies that FSIS permanently carries.
“There are about 1,000 vacancies,” Painter said. “It’s steadily gotten worse.”
Harrah for smaller government !!!
There are so many ways to shrink government that don’t involve skimping on vital food or medical safety, that I can’t help but think that BushCo is missing the point again. The point is to do more with less, not less with more; but, then again, their priority is not shrinking spending, their priority is increasing it as much as possible with pork for their friends and allies. Oversight just isn’t profitable enough for them to care!
This is what happens when you let the industry, ANY industry police itself.
This should serve as a warning to those neo-conmen who want to shrink government to the point where they can “drown it in a bathtub.”
I think what we’re missing here is the other side of the picture. Some of these vacancies are here because of the food industry lobbyists keeping funding from the USDA and complicating inspection rules such as what constitutes grounds for stopping the production line or rejecting / condemning carcasses. Too much of the inspection is done by self-regulation and paper inspections because of the lawmakers being pressured by these lobbyists or swayed by large political contributions by the big food processors. It is after all in their best interest to keep inspectors out of the plants, and violation fines off the books.
Let me see,
Fire 100 Gov employees, or fire 1 HIGH paid politician??
The gov has cut back ALOT of jobs, including the FDA…7 offices CLOSED in california, and many more around the country.
Even funnier is that the Vets admin, has cut hospital funding but gave raises to those at the top…
ALL this to pay for a war?? To protect ourselves from terrorism we loose our FOOD and product quality?? Those fired/quit/lay’d off didnt go to the FRONT LINES?? So whats happening??