New Outcry Over Poultry Bacteria : Safety: Industry scrambles to restore consumer confidence amid cries of ‘dirty chicken.’

The poultry industry, plagued by microbiological contamination problems, is being inundated with sharp criticism about its production methods from a rare convergence of sources including representatives of Congress, the Bush Administration and consumer groups.

The barrage began in earnest last month after a strongly worded speech by a top federal official warning that poultry interests should “do something (about) dirty chicken.”

The comments were made by Lester Crawford, DVM, who serves as administrator for the Agriculture Department’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, the agency responsible for the wholesomeness of the country’s meat supply. Since Crawford’s speech, given at a National Broiler Council meeting, others have weighed in with similarly harsh comments about today’s high-speed poultry production. Numerous viewpoints were also aired on the issue during testimony before a recent Congressional hearing in Washington.

The attacks have sent the industry scrambling for a response. The National Broiler Council recently announced the introduction of an experimental program designed to reduce contamination of chicken carcasses during processing. However, the actual processing plants involved, the starting dates for the study and the exact procedures have yet to be determined.

“We are well aware of the importance of the public’s confidence in poultry and we feel it is important to be aggressive and creative in enhancing this confidence,” said George Haefner, chairman of the National Broiler Council. “Chicken is a safe and wholesome food. Our members are strongly in favor of continuing to try new and innovative processes to make our products even safer and more wholesome.”

Ken May, Ph.D, a technical adviser for the National Broiler Council, said that under “normal” conditions the trade group would have conducted the six-month study in relative anonymity and then announced the results--if they were promising.

“However, Crawford asked us (in his critical address) to take an initiative,” May said. “And because of Crawford’s speech the board decided to go ahead and announce what we planned to do (a study that was in the works for some time, nonetheless).”

Crawford’s comments at the mid-June meeting seem to signal an attempt by USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service to shed its image as an unwavering ally of the food industry, often to the detriment of perceived consumer interests. The agency may also be signaling producers that it is the private sector’s responsibility--rather than the federal government’s--to solve the increasing contamination of chicken by pathogens such as Salmonella and Camphylobacter.

“In the past, USDA has been typecast as the defender of the (meat) industry,” Crawford said. “We have not been and will not be. . . . The job of FSIS is to protect the public health, and that we will do at all costs. . . . If it comes to choosing between the health of agribusiness and the health of the American people, we will take the public health course every time.”

In uncharacteristically harsh language, Crawford also told poultry industry representatives, “Don’t expect USDA to take the heat for you.”

Despite Crawford’s criticism, the USDA also has received a proportionally large share of the blame in recent discussions of poultry contamination.

The USDA’s Agriculture Research Service released a report in April, 1990, that showed 65%, or two out of three of the chicken carcasses laboratory-tested at several processing plants, contained Salmonella bacteria. More recent data indicates that Camphylobacter, another leading food-borne illness, is present in comparable or even higher levels than Salmonella.

Both Salmonella and Camphylobacter can be destroyed if the chicken meat, at all steps in the food chain, is properly refrigerated, handled and cooked to well-doneness. However, the infections can be severe, even fatal, to high-risk groups such as infants, elderly, pregnant women and those with compromised immune systems.

Per-capita consumption of chicken in the United States is about 70 pounds per year. The Centers for Disease Control, in coordination with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, estimates that one out of every 25,000 four-ounce servings of chicken causes food poisoning.

Federal officials also estimate that there are as many as 4 million cases of Salmonella annually in this country and an additional 2 million instances of Camphylobacter. Combined, the two bacteria cause about 2,000 deaths a year. How many can be attributed to chicken is unknown.

Testimony late last month before the Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources was particularly critical of chicken producers. At issue was legislation, sponsored by Sen. Howard Metzenbaum (D-Ohio), that would require a study of the threat posed by microbiological contaminants in food, particularly chicken. The bill, entitled the “Poultry Consumer Protection Act of 1991,” may eventually force the government to establish microbiological standards for allowable levels, if any, of contaminants in chicken and turkey products. No standards currently exist.

Metzenbaum, in a recent newspaper opinion column on the topic, wrote: “There was a time when the U.S. Department of Agriculture ‘seal of approval’ meant that the chicken you were buying was safe to eat. No more. Now you can find that same seal on chickens that are contaminated with bacteria that can make you sick--or even kill you.”

Metzenbaum urged the industry to make significant investments in technology that would slow the rising contamination rates. “It is time for the industry to put a little of its profit back into raising a cleaner bird,” he wrote.

One Chicago-based consumer group lauded Metzenbaum’s effort to address contamination in poultry.

Robert A. Brown, president of Food Animal Concerns Trust, said: “Despite sharp increases in Camphylobacter infections and mounting evidence of a major threat to public health, the poultry industry and USDA have done little except launch a campaign to tell consumers how to cook and handle already contaminated meat. Consumer education is not enough. Persons who prepare food in homes, restaurants and schools are not trained bacteriologists. They can’t be expected to decontaminate chicken. Consumers need and should demand a clean product.”

Brown advocates that contamination be controlled at all levels--farm, processing and retail--because of the difficulties inherent in “decontaminating” birds.

One of the poultry industry’s most severe critics is Carol Tucker Foreman, a former top USDA official in the Carter Administration and currently a public policy consultant in Washington. Recently, Foreman said that the poultry industry, with the USDA’s assistance, “tells us that crap on chicken is OK if we just cook it well done.” She feels consumers should not have to deal with poultry as if it were, as she put it, “hazardous waste.”

According to Foreman, we are living with “a policy of whatever the (National) Broiler Council and the (American) Meat Institute want is what you (the public) get.”

Crawford’s claim to the contrary, Foreman charges that USDA and the industry are putting “convenience” ahead of “public health and consumer issues.”

Not surprisingly, the poultry industry has been stunned by the virtual nonstop criticism. May, the chicken council’s technical adviser, was at a loss to explain how the most recent barrage began. However, he suspects that meat inspector unions are behind some of the statements.

“We think it is organized by union activity. The unions and USDA management have had disagreements . . . and when they get in a quarrel we get caught in a squeeze,” he said. Foreman, for instance, has acknowledged providing advice to labor union officials.

One result of the recent chicken controversy is that more processing firms will begin offering consumers instructions on the package for handling raw meat.

One firm that has had handling instructions on its chicken product line for some time is Gold ‘n Plump Poultry of Cold Spring, Minn. The language on the company’s packaging for its Minute Chicken Stir Fry & Salad Chunks is unprecedented. It says: “Wash hands, countertops and utensils with hot, soapy water after contact with uncooked chicken.”

The USDA’s Crawford urged all poultry companies to follow suit.

“Put handling instruction on your labels,” he said. “The reason is simple: People know less today than our parents did about the proper care and preparation of poultry. Care labeling is not a warning label. It is a recognition that current generations need to know that care is needed in the kitchen as well as in the poultry processing plants.”