Consumer Groups Accuse U.S. of Negligence on Food Safety

By ELIZABETH BECKER

ASHINGTON, Oct. 14 — Consumer and environmental groups blamed the Bush administration today for the nation's largest meat recall, saying the administration had failed to set adequate safety standards for the meat industry. Officials at the Agriculture Department flatly denied the accusation.

On Sunday, the Pilgrim's Pride Corporation asked that 27.4 million pounds of cooked turkey and chicken products be returned for fear that the roasts and delicatessen meats sold under the Wampler brand are contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes bacteria.

The listeria infestation at the plant in Franconia, Pa., was discovered by Department of Agriculture inspectors trying to find the source of a listeria outbreak that has killed seven in seven Northeastern states.

"The illnesses are the result of inexcusable dereliction of duty by the government agency charged with assuring meat safety," said Carol Tucker Foreman of the Consumer Federation of America.

Ms. Foreman and other consumer advocates pointed to the administration's failure to adopt new regulations covering inspections for listeria that were initiated by President Bill Clinton in the months before he left office. They said adoption of these tighter standards would have helped prevent the recent outbreak as well as the record-breaking recall.

Officials at the Department of Agriculture disagreed. They said they took more than 10,000 listeria samples last year in meat and poultry processing plants across the country. The department was testing the plant for listeria, as were inspectors for the company, said Stephen Cohen, the spokesman for its food and safety and inspection service.

"We test more for listeria than they assume," Mr. Cohen said. "Listeria is one of those ubiquitous airborne bacteria in the environment."

This summer the department announced a recall of 19 million pounds sold by the ConAgra Beef Company to grocery stores and households around the country.

These two major recalls have prompted consumer and environmental groups to question safety standards throughout the industry now that animals and poultry are raised on huge feedlots and plants and are killed and processed in huge slaughterhouses. They contend that the chances for contamination have risen sharply with the development of these enormous meat-processing operations, while inspection standards have loosened.

"The meat industry has gotten so huge and producing meat at such a large volume in these huge slaughterhouses it's easy for meat to become contaminated," said Navis Bermudez of the Sierra Club.

The club has made regulating confined animal feedlot operations a priority and recently released a report detailing water pollution caused by these operations.

"When these animals arrive at the slaughterhouses, their hides are already filthy with manure from being raised in such confined spaces," Ms. Bermudez said, "and they are more likely to be stressed, which helps create more pathogens."

Richard Cogdill, the chief financial officer of Pilgrim's Pride, disagreed with the advocates, who, he said, failed to appreciate the voluntary nature of his company's recall.

"We went way beyond the normal procedures to try to do everything we can to assure customers that we will not tolerate any tainted product," Mr. Cogdill said.

He said Pilgrim's Pride, the nation's second-largest poultry producer, used animals raised in pens within huge plants to ensure total control over their environment. "Our position is the opposite of the activists," Mr. Cogdill said. "To the extent that we can contain and control the environment, the better we can control bacteria in the animals."

The General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of the Congress, disagrees and last summer called for better federal oversight and enforcement of safety rules.

The National Academy of Sciences said in a recent report that the Agriculture Department could improve its system for evaluating food safety risks and among its recommendations was more consistent testing.

Details of the products being recalled can be found on the Web site www.fsis.usda.gov or by calling an Agriculture Department meat and poultry hot line, (800) 535-4555.