Summary

The federal inspection system falls short in protecting the public from the most serious health risks caused by microbial contamination. Resources that could be more effectively used in a risk-based system are drained away by labor-intensive inspection procedures and inflexible inspection schedules. Under current law, federal inspectors must examine each carcass slaughtered--nearly 7 billion birds and livestock annually--and visit each of the 5,900 processing plants at least once during each operating shift. During these inspections, inspectors rely on their sense of smell, touch, and feel to make judgments about disease conditions and contamination. However, these methods cannot spot microbial contamination. The government must move to a modern, scientific, risk-based inspection system that targets resources toward higher-risk meat and poultry products. Meat processing plants that have started microbial testing programs have used the test results to identify problems and made changes to improve the safety of their products. However, the government has not supported this effort by designing generic programs or disseminating information gained from individual testing programs. A Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point system is generally considered the best available approach for ensuring safe foods because it seeks to prevent contamination in the first place. The government plans to require meat and poultry plants to use such a system but has yet to determine (1) whether microbial testing will be required or (2) who should do it--the plants or government inspectors.

GAO found that: (1) FSIS does not effectively use its resources to protect the public from microbes because of inflexible legal requirements and outdated, labor-intensive inspection methods; (2) the industry's growth will further strain limited FSIS resources; (3) FSIS inspection methods actually spread microbial contamination; (4) FSIS does not base its inspection allocations on risk and does not routinely test for microbial contaminants or require the industry to conduct such tests; (5) 48 percent of the processing plants reviewed conduct microbial tests to ensure the safety of their products and, as a result, most of the plants have made changes to their facilities and operations to improve safety; (6) microbial testing programs vary widely because plants develop their programs independently and without FSIS input; (7) most small plants do not have testing programs because of the cost and the lack of FSIS guidance in developing and implementing testing programs; (8) the HACCP system is generally regarded as the best available approach for ensuring food safety because it focuses on contamination prevention; and (9) although FSIS plans to issue a proposed regulation on plants' development and implementation of HACCP in 1994, it has not determined whether to require microbial testing as part of the system.