Critics Take Aim at Guidelines on Standards for Food Safety

By ELIZABETH BECKER

ASHINGTON, Nov. 1 — Consumer advocates and union officials called on Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman on Thursday to disavow instructions given to meat inspectors in Kansas that critics and inspectors said encouraged the relaxation of food-safety standards to keep production moving at slaughterhouses, even amid concerns about fecal contamination.

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In guidelines issued in May, the inspectors were told that they could be held accountable for lost production if they failed to justify slowing production, whether to examine what appeared to be traces of feces or to wash their hands.

"This is unheard of, the idea that you can't shut down the line when there's a problem," said an inspector who was at the May meetings.

Agriculture Department officials said they could not confirm that the instructions were part of an official document. A spokeswoman said they were not issued from headquarters here.

"Whether this is an official document or not, we have not changed our policy of zero tolerance," said the spokeswoman, Alisa Harrison.

Ms. Harrison said the protesting consumer groups "could be using this document for political purposes."

Dr. Garry L. McKee, administrator of the Food Safety and Inspection Service in the department, issued a statement saying meat-safety standards had not been relaxed.

"F.S.I.S. has not changed its zero tolerance policy and has no plans to do so," Dr. McKee said.

The instruction memorandum became public weeks after the largest meat recall. Pilgrim's Pride asked for the recall of 27.4 million pounds of cooked turkey and chicken products on Oct. 13, after listeria bacteria had been found in its plant in Franconia, Pa., and tied by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to a listeriosis outbreak that caused seven deaths in seven Northeastern states this year.

Earlier, ConAgra had asked for the recall of 19 million pounds of ground beef that might be tainted by E. coli. That has become the third largest meat recall.

"This directive puts a straitjacket on inspectors and clearly transforms F.S.I.S.'s mission from that of protecting public health to protecting the economic health of the meat industry," said a letter signed by representatives of three advocacy groups, the Community Nutrition Institute, the Government Accountability Project and Public Citizen.

The memo, "General Information and Conduct" for new meat inspectors, was distributed from May 8 to 24 inspectors at the Farmland National Beef Packing Company in Liberal, Kan., by two Agriculture Department veterinarians, according to the inspector who attended the meeting. The memo was made public this week by the National Joint Council of Food Inspection Locals, a union that represents meat inspectors and that is part of the American Federation of Government Employees.

In a section on fecal contamination, the inspectors were warned, "YOU are accountable for this very serious responsibility of stopping the company's production for the benefit of food safety."

They are told the limits of what is considered feces. "That is appalling," Carol Tucker Foreman of the Consumer Federation of America said. "Poop is poop. I can't think of any circumstance where it is tolerable to have fecal material on any meat coming off the line."

Paul D. Johnson, acting chairman of the National Joint Council of Food Inspection Locals, said the memo showed that in the Kansas plant, at least, inspectors were unable to do a thorough job inspecting meat.

"Inspectors," Mr. Johnson said, "know that a small smear of feces can have deadly consequences just as easily as an amount large enough to have `a fibrous nature,' yet the U.S.D.A. prohibits us from taking action that could protect consumers."

In his statement, Dr. McKee said the department insisted that inspectors were required to remove "contamination on that portion of the product they are responsible for inspecting."

The consumer groups and inspectors' union said they were concerned that the memo repeatedly pointed out that inspectors could be held accountable for lost production if they stopped operations to examine possible contamination and failed to find problems.