Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., and Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y.
Reps. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., and Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., today joined Consumer Reports in calling on the Agriculture Department to shut down all Foster Farms poultry processing facilities until a salmonella outbreak that has sickened more than 600 people in 29 states is stopped.

But USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service said it had taken proper action by announcing a recall of certain Foster Farms products directly linked to illness.

Last Thursday USDA announced Foster Farms had issued a voluntary recall for its chicken products. Over the past year, an outbreak of antibiotic-resistant salmonella Heidelberg linked to chicken produced by Foster Farms has sickened more than 600 people according to the Centers for Disease Contorl, but FSIS has said it did not have the power to request a recall until illness was linked directly to a package of meat.

“Burying news late at night on a holiday weekend may be a time-honored tradition by Washington spin doctors, but it is a shameful way to protect public health,” DeLauro and Slaughter said.

“We have been saying for months that tainted chicken does not belong on the grocery stores shelves or the dinner tables of American families. How many more people will fall ill, or even be hospitalized, before USDA does the right thing and cracks down on companies that threaten our families’ health and safety?

“USDA will claim they do not have the authority to either issue a mandatory recall or shut down Foster Farms,” they continued. “We disagree, but have introduced the Pathogens Reduction and Testing Reform Act to ensure there is no confusion. This bill would allow USDA to prevent dangerous, antibiotic-resistant pathogens from ever getting to supermarkets in the first place. House leadership should take up this bill immediately before any more American consumers fall victim.”

The Pathogens Reduction and Testing Reform Act would require USDA to recall any meat, poultry, or egg product contaminated by pathogens associated with serious illness or death, or that are resistant to two or more critically important antibiotics for human medicine.

Salmonella Heidelberg is resistant to several commonly prescribed antibiotics, a trait that is associated with increased hospitalization in infected individuals.

Consumer Reports said, “We do not believe the current action taken to recall Foster Farms’ contaminated chicken goes far enough to protect the public’s health. We are calling on the government and the company to do more by widening the dates of the recall to the beginning of the outbreak (March 2013) and shutting down the plants in question until the outbreak is under control.”

But an FSIS spokesman told The Hagstrom Report in an email,

“FSIS acted aggressively and expeditiously as soon as information was available to establish a conclusive link between a Foster Farms product and an illness, and then to initiate the recall process. Once we determined the scope of the recall, FSIS stayed on the job around the clock to proactively share the information with media and other entities to get information to consumers in advance of July 4 grilling.”

▪ Pathogen Reduction and Testing Reform Act of 2014 • Consumer Reports — Foster Farms finally recalls contaminated chicken