Meat, Poultry Labels Will Carry Safety Information

The Agriculture Department will require new labels on all packages of meat and poultry with instructions for safe handling and cooking to minimize the chance of bacterial illness, according to a legal settlement reached Wednesday.

Under terms of the settlement, the department must publish proposed labeling rules for public comment by Aug. 15. Agency officials said that when the final rules are put into effect, it will be the first time the federal government has required comprehensive preparation procedures on the label of a food product.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated that more than 80 million food-borne illnesses occur each year in the United States. Many of those could be prevented through adequate cooking and proper handling, government officials said.

The settlement was reached as a result of a lawsuit brought against Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy by six plaintiffs sponsored by Jeremy Rifkin’s Beyond Beef Coalition, an activist organization whose mission is to cut world beef consumption by half.

The plaintiffs argued that the department was violating meat inspection laws that state the “USDA inspected/passed” label on meats means the product is not adulterated, misbranded or unwholesome. The suit said affixing these inspection labels to meat and poultry products--without also requiring warnings that the meat might contain harmful bacteria--violated the Federal Meat Inspection Act.

The suit was filed following a food-borne disease outbreak in January in which more than 300 people became ill and two children died after eating contaminated hamburgers at Jack in the Box restaurants in the Northwest.

Rifkin said Wednesday that the settlement was a “turning point in food safety,” and he compared it to government-mandated warning labels on cigarette packages.

Maggie Glavin, deputy administrator for regulatory programs for the department’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, said the settlement “is a big win for consumers.” But she noted that Espy had announced in January that he planned to mandate safe-handling instructions on meat and poultry.