Health Warning Labels on Chicken Urged

Dangers of illness from raw chicken are so great that all packages should carry labels with consumer advice on handling, a former Agriculture Department official told a Senate committee Friday.

Carol Tucker Foreman, former assistant secretary of agriculture, told the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee that consumers should not have to handle a common food product like chicken as if it were hazardous waste.

“Contaminated chicken contaminates everything it touches, and everything a cook touches after touching the chicken and before scrubbing with soap and hot water,” she said. That means counters, sinks, cooking utensils, cutting boards, sponges, drawer pulls and foods that are eaten raw, like salad.

“Instead of stamping chicken ‘wholesome,’ the department should require poultry processors to provide handling instructions,” said Foreman, a consultant to the Consumer Federation of America.

USDA and industry officials said consumer education was under way.

They acknowledged that bacteria is present on chicken, as on most animal products, but said proper cooking would kill anything that would cause illness. They defended current inspection procedures and blamed a labor dispute between the USDA and inspectors’ union for raising the issue to the congressional level.

Ken May of the Broiler Council said a survey of the trade association’s members showed that many already were using labels with USDA-approved handling and cooking instructions.

“We believe that all broiler companies will be using this statement in due course,” he said.

The two kinds of food poisoning linked to chicken are salmonella and campylobacter. Salmonella usually causes diarrhea and cramps, but can be deadly to infants, the elderly or the very sick. Campylobacter is similar, but has a relatively high occurrence among young adults, said Dr. Mitchell Cohen of the Centers for Disease Control.

About 800,000 to 4 million infections and at least 500 deaths in the nation are linked to salmonella each year, Cohen said. About 2 million cases of illness due to campylobacter occur, with 200 to 800 deaths, he said.

Dr. Douglas Archer, deputy director of food safety at the Food and Drug Administration, said it is very difficult to detect the bacteria on raw chickens. He recommended consumer education on proper handling and cooking as the best short-term solution.

This means making sure counters are clean and keeping blood or juices from raw chickens from other foods. It also means keeping chickens refrigerated or frozen before cooking and cooking chicken to an internal temperature of at least 140 degrees.