From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov Transcript for: Reducing Pathogens in Meat and Poultry Description: Foodborne illness can affect the health and safety of Americans. A GAO reports digs into how the USDA can help keep meat and poultry. Related GAO Work: GAO-18-272, USDA's Standards to Control Pathogens in Meat and Poultry Products Released: April 2018 [ Background Music ] [ Steve Morris: ] Some standards for some products, such as ground beef, haven’t been updated in over 20 years. [ Matt Oldham: ] Welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report. Your source for news and information from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. I'm Matt Oldham. The U.S. food supply is generally considered safe but foodborne illness remains a common problem. Disease causing organisms that sicken millions each year, also known as pathogens, can be found in foods like beef, pork, chicken and turkey. Recently I sat down with Steve Morris, a director in our natural resources and environment team to talk more about GAO's new report on "Pathogens in U.S. Meat and Poultry". I wanted to know what is being done to ensure the safe consumption of these foods? [ Steve Morris: ] Well the U.S. Department of Agriculture plays a key role in ensuring that the food we eat is safe and one way it does that is by setting and enforcing what's called pathogen standards. And these standards are aimed at reducing the contamination in our food before the products are sold. [ Matt Oldham: ] Has the USDA set standards for all common types of meat and poultry I can buy at the grocery store? [ Steve Morris: ] Yeah Matt, a little bit of history here, so USDA began setting pathogen standards for meat and poultry back in 1996 and so since that time it's established standards for some products but not for others. Just to give you an example, there are some pathogen standards for whole chicken and ground chicken and chicken parts like wings and legs. But there aren't similar standards for commonly consumed products like porkchops and ground pork and turkey breast. In addition, Matt, you know some standards for some products such as ground beef haven't been updated in over 20 years. And just for some context, you know, setting these standards for meat and poultry products is not really an easy task. It really requires USDA to fully assess the health risk to consumers which in some cases can take a number of years. [ Matt Oldham: ] So, why is that? Why is the USDA having trouble updating these standards? [ Steve Morris: ] Well, as I mentioned USDA began setting standards about 20 years ago, when they initially set those standards, it did so based on the level of the pathogens present at that time. And it didn't really consider how much of a reduction in those pathogens was needed to protect human health. Also, when USDA did develop the standards it was because it was directed to do or basically in response to an outbreak. So, to its credit, the USDA's a little bit more proactive these days just for an example, the agency's collecting some information on pathogens and pork and this effort may lead to new standards. But based on our work we found that really the process for deciding which products need standards is unclear and it's not really fully documented. We also found that the agency really hasn't set time frames or deadlines for determining whether updates are needed for existing standards. [ Matt Oldham: ] If I could go back to something you said a little earlier, you had mentioned the differences between products as it relates to chicken versus pork versus beef as some examples. Is there a reason why we're not talking about lamb or bison or emu? [ Steve Morris: ] [Chuckles] That's a great question! Especially on the emu. Well you know USDA is really focusing more on the more commonly consumed products and so they really focus their efforts more on the beef and the poultry and the pork. [ Background Music ] [ Matt Oldham: ] Given that the USDA has had challenges executing our past recommendations, I asked Steve to walk me through his teams latest rec’s for the agency. [ Steve Morris: ] Yeah, absolutely. You know we have identified basically three ways we think USDA can strengthen its efforts here. First, USDA needs to really document the process that it's using for its decisions when you know they're thinking about new standards for products. Second, they really need to take a look at setting deadlines for determining what standards need to be updated. As I mentioned some of these are over 20 years old. And third, we think USDA can provide hog producers with some better information on practices that can reduce pathogens on the farm. [ Matt Oldham: ] Steve, is there anything consumers can do to help themselves out when it comes to safe consumption of these foods? [ Steve Morris: ] Well, sure yeah. Consumers really play a part as well, I mean, they can reduce the risk of contamination by cooking their meat and poultry thoroughly and by storing the foods properly. [ Matt Oldham: ] What do you feel is the bottom line of your report? [ Steve Morris: ] Well Matt, you know, I think the bottom line here is that, you know, reducing the amount of pathogens in meat and poultry is obviously very important. USDA has taken some steps, some good steps, to do this through the establishment of these pathogen standards, but we really think more can be done here. So, we're making a number of recommendations to help USDA along and we think that these actions, if implemented, could really help to ensure that the meat and poultry products that both you and I eat are as safe as possible. [ Background Music ] [ Matt Oldham: ] Thanks for listening to the Watchdog Report. To hear more podcasts, subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts. [ Background Music ] [ Matt Oldham: ] For more from the congressional watchdog, the U.S. Government Accountability Office, visit us at gao.gov.