美国国家公共电台 NPR USDA Offers Pork Companies A New Inspection Plan, Despite Opposition（在线收听）

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The way the federal government oversees pork production is changing. Rules announced today paved the way for fewer federal inspectors in hog slaughterhouses and more company employees doing those inspections. The U.S. Department of Agriculture calls this modernization. As NPR's Dan Charles reports, critics see it differently - as privatization.

DAN CHARLES, BYLINE: A big pork processing plant is like an assembly line in reverse. A whole pig gets cut up into parts, and at various points along this disassembly line, by law, there have to be inspectors from the federal government watching for any sign of contamination or disease. They reject live animals that seem sick or sections of carcass that don't look right. Casey Gallimore's been in some of these plants. She's director of regulatory and scientific affairs at the North American Meat Institute, which represents meat companies. A really big plant has seven inspectors on the line, she says.

CASEY GALLIMORE: You're going to have three inspectors that are looking at the heads, three inspectors that are looking at what we call the viscera, which is all the internal organs, and then you'll have one inspector that's looking at the carcass itself.

CHARLES: But now the USDA is shaking up that system. Under a new rule that's been in the works for 20 years but finalized today, pork companies have a new option. They can hire their own people to help out. These company employees would be at each inspection station. They'd weed out the problematic pork before the USDA inspector gives it a final OK. And there will be fewer USDA inspectors in the plant because they won't have as much to do. Also under this new system, pork companies will be allowed to run their processing plants faster. Gallimore says the industry likes the idea.

GALLIMORE: It's always great to have option.

CHARLES: She says this will let plants try some new things, maybe operate more efficiently. She says it won't affect food safety because USDA inspectors still will look at every piece of pork that goes into the food supply.

GALLIMORE: There's still three online inspectors that are there all of the time. And there's going to be two offline inspectors walking around all of the time.

CHARLES: Five big pork plants have been experimenting with this system for the past 20 years. But there's been a lot of opposition to expanding it, from some USDA food safety inspectors, also from food safety activists - for instance, Patty Lovera, a food industry critic with the nonprofit group Food & Water Watch.

PATTY LOVERA: We call it privatizing inspection.

CHARLES: Lovera says you can't expect company employees to be as aggressive as independent government employees when it comes to spotting problems because problems cost money.

LOVERA: And to ask company employees to be under that pressure of pulling product out and costing their employer money is a lot to ask. And we think consumers are better served when we have an independent government employee making that call.

CHARLES: And even though there still will be USDA inspectors in every plant, Lovera says there will be fewer of them, maybe 40% fewer, trying to monitor carcasses that will be moving faster.

LOVERA: So that just ups the pressure on that last USDA inspector kind of to be the last line of defense as opposed to having them doing things along the way.

CHARLES: Lovera says increasing the line speed also can make it more dangerous for workers in these plants. Gallimore, for her part, says companies have every incentive to put out safe products and also protect their workers. Injuries in meat plants, she says, are currently at an all-time low. The new rules take effect in two months. Plants will have several months to decide whether they'll adopt the new inspection system or stay with what they know.

Dan Charles, NPR News.