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USDA Revamps 50-Year-Old Poultry Inspection Rules

Poultry inspectors will focus more on food safety than on quality, potentially resulting in fewer foodborne illnesses each year.
Image: A chicken stands beside a feeder in a Tyson Foods Inc. poultry house
The Obama administration is overhauling poultry plant inspections for the first time in more than 50 years.APRIL L. BROWN / AP file
/ Source: The Associated Press

The Obama administration is overhauling poultry plant inspections for the first time in more than 50 years, a move it says could result in 5,000 fewer foodborne illnesses each year. Final rules announced Thursday would reduce the number of government poultry inspectors. But those who remain will focus more on food safety than on quality, requiring them to pull more birds off the line for closer inspections and encouraging more testing for pathogens. More inspectors would check the facilities to make sure they are clean.

The changes would be voluntary, but many of the country's largest poultry companies are expected to opt in. The new rules would better train inspectors to find hazards in the plant and would require all companies to do additional testing for pathogens. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the changes take into account current science, updating the inspection system from 1950s thinking that visual defects meant safety problems."This is a significant opportunity to bring the inspection system into the 21st century," he said.

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— The Associated Press