Surveys of Domestic Food Safety

Regulatory agencies are required by law or administrative rules to report the number of food inspections they have conducted and the results of those inspections. The FSIS, for example, issues an annual report on its activities to Congress, while the FDA issues irregular reports on its inspections of fruits and vegetables, milk and egg products, and seafood. In its 2000 report, the most recent available, the FSIS reported that it had inspected more than 130 million meat animals and 8.5 billion poultry animals in 2000. As shown in the table on page 148, the percentage of animals condemned as unsafe for human consumption ranged from less than 0.2 percent for sheep to more than 3 percent for turkeys.

< FSIS INSPECTION ACTIVITIES, 2000	>
SPECIES	NUMBER OF ANIMALS INSPECTED	NUMBER CONDEMNED	PERCENTAGE CONDEMNED
cattle	35,136,375	188,914	0.54
calves	1,103,173	22,408	2.03
swine	93,385,041	410,814	0.44
goats	530,371	1,247	0.24
sheep	3,315,532	5,831	0.18
equines	50,449	254	0.50
other livestock	19,065	20	0.10
total livestock	133,540,006	629,488	0.47
young chickens	8,082,064,151	82,350,929	1.02
mature chickens	169,679,149	10,073,129	5.94
fryer-
roaster	166,026	2,687	1.62
turkeys
young turkeys	259,739,860	1,737,600	0.67

•< FSIS INSPECTION ACTIVITIES, 2000 (continued) >

SPECIES	NUMBER OF ANIMALS INSPECTED	NUMBER CONDEMNED	PERCENTAGE CONDEMNED
mature turkeys	2,133,739	73,851	3.46
ducks	23,784,714	453,296	1.91
other poultry	9,704,016	66,163	0.68
total poultry	8,547,271,655	94,757,665	1.11

Source: "Meat, Poultry, and Egg Products Inspection: 2000 Report of the Secretary of Agriculture to the U.S. Congress." Available online. URL: fsis.usda. gov/oa/pubs/rtc2000/report.pdf.

Inspection of the nation's fruit and vegetable food products has been more sporadic. Probably the broadest survey of such products taken in recent years was one conducted by the FDA in March 2000. Some results of that survey are shown in the table on pages 150-151. That survey was initiated to satisfy a 1997 directive issued by President Bill Clinton "to provide further assurance that fruits and vegetables consumed by the American public meet the highest health and safety standards." President's Clinton directive, in turn, was motivated by a joint report prepared by a committee of the DHHS, USDA, and EPA indicating that the safety of fresh produce in the United States was an area of growing concern. The 2000 FDA survey showed that while the rate of contaminated fruits and vegetables from domestic sources was very low, imported products

< SURVEY OF FRUIT AND VEGETABLE CONTAMINATION, 2000 >
PRODUCE ITEM	IMPORTED PRODUCE SURVEY*	DOMESTIC PRODUCE SURVEY**
NUMBER	NUMBER POSITIVE ***	PERCENT	NUMBER	NUMBER	PERCENT
SAMPLED	VIOLATION	SAMPLED	POSITIVE***	VIOLATION
cantaloupe	151	11	7.3	164	5	3.0
celery	84	3	3.6	120	0	0.0
cilantro	177	16	9.0	85	1	1.2
culantro****	12	6	50.0	0	0	0.0
lettuce	116	2	1.7	142	1	0.7
parsley	84	2	2.4	90	1	0.0

(continues)

< SURVEY OF FRUIT AND VEGETABLE CONTAMINATION, 2000 (continued) >
PRODUCE ITEM	IMPORTED PRODUCE SURVEY* DOMESTIC PRODUCE SURVEY**
NUMBER SAMPLED	NUMBER PERCENT NUMBER NUMBER POS T VE VIOLATION SAMPLED POSITIVE* *	PERCENT VIOLATION
scallions	180	3 1.7 93 3	3.2
strawberries	143	1 0.7 136 0	0.0
tomatoes	20	0 0.0 198 0	0.0
Survey conducted in fiscal year (FY) 1999 on 1,003 samples. Survey conducted in FY 2000/2001 on 1,028 samples. Positive = contaminated with a pathogen. **Culantro is a cilantro-like herb from the Caribbean. Source: Adapted from "FDA Survey of Domestic Fresh Produce, FY2000/2001 Field Assignment." Available online. URL: vm.cfsan.fda.gov/ ~dms/prodsu10.html.

were a very different matter, with as much as half of such products contaminated.

Regular food inspections are an essential part of food safety programs. They provide government officials with information on the percentage of food products that are contaminated and places where contamination may be a problem. This information allows more vigorous enforcement of existing laws and regulations and, where needed, the adoption of new laws and regulations.