2010s

The Salmonella Action Plan is the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), part of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), details how the agency plans to deal with outbreaks in meat and poultry products.

In calendar year 2014, the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS, part of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), analyzed 18,087 verification samples across three meat and poultry product classes with the following rates of Salmonellapositives by product class: young chicken ( 3.8%), ground beef (1.6%) and turkey (1.7%). FSIS believes that the higher the percent positive rate, the greater the potential for the public to consume a product that can cause foodborne illness. FSIS scheduled approximately 75 sample sets monthly using a risk-based algorithm to target establishments demonstrating variable or poor process control (i.e., establishments with high percent positive rates). Previous Salmonella Annual Reports can be found on the FSIS web site.

The Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), part of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), conducts nontyphoidal Salmonella serotype testing on isolates recovered from raw meat and poultry products subject to sampling under the Pathogen Reduction Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (PR/HACCP) verification testing program. The results presented here provide an estimate of relative serotype distributions for each product class during the 16-year period following implementation of   the PR/HACCP program (1998-2014).   All data sets are reported by calendar year (CY).

 Avian influenza is an extremely infectious and potentially fatal disease in poultry. In 2014 and 2016, outbreaks in the U.S. led to the death of more than 50 million chickens, turkeys, and other birds, and cost billions of dollars. Controlling avian influenza viruses in poultry is crucial to preventing those viruses from evolving to infect people. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has taken actions to address lessons learned from its responses to the outbreaks, such as encouraging states to form response teams. However, it does not have a plan to evaluate the effectiveness its efforts.

Ninety percent of the seafood eaten in the United States is imported, and about half of that is raised on fish farms. Farmers may treat fish with antibiotics and other drugs because these fish can be susceptible to infections. Misuse of drugs can leave residues in seafood that cause health problems for consumers.

 The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), part of the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), warned in 2016 that infants face a higher health risk than adults from arsenic owing to their less-varied diets, and proposed guidance on arsenic levels in infant rice cereal. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reviewed recent scientific work and FDA and United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) actions to manage the risk of arsenic in rice. GAO found the agencies have researched methods to detect arsenic in rice and taken other actions, but that FDA could better communicate the risk to the public and coordinate with other agencies.

 The U.S. food supply is generally considered safe, but foodborne illness—such as salmonella poisoning—remains a common problem. For some meat and poultry products such as ground beef, there are standards for how much harmful bacteria the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) can find when testing. However, some common products such as turkey breasts and pork chops don't have such standards. It's unclear how USDA decides which products to consider for new standards. Also, some of USDA's food safety standards are outdated, with no time frames for revision.

 This report responds to Congressional request for information on food irradiation. Our objectives were to determine (1) how Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) current labeling requirements for irradiated food products compare with the Department of Agriculture's (USDA) labeling requirements and how FDA's proposed changes to its requirements might impact the amount of food that is irradiated and (2) the extent to which FDA has effectively managed the petition review process for irradiated food.

In January 2007 the Government Accountability Office (GAO) designated federal oversight of food safety as a high-risk area needing urgent attention and transformation because of the federal government's fragmented oversight of food safety. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), part of the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), is responsible for ensuring the safety of roughly 80 percent of the U.S. food supply--virtually all domestic and imported foods except for meat, poultry, and processed egg products--valued at a total of $466 billion annually, as of June 2008. In 2007 the FDA Science Board, an advisory board to the agency, reported that science at FDA suffers from serious deficiencies.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reviewed (1) interventions before slaughter that may help reduce Shiga-toxin Eschirichia coli (STEC) in cattle; (2) the United States Deprtment of Agriculture's (USDA) role in approving STEC vaccines; (3) the extent to which STEC strains have been determined to be adulterants in beef and the status of tests to detect them; and (4) practices, if any, other countries have employed that could reduce STEC in cattle and may be relevant to U.S. efforts. GAO reviewed documents; visited cattle feedlots and a slaughter plant; and interviewed agency officials, researchers, and industry and consumer group representatives with expertise in STEC in cattle.