poultry 11 articles

Do you fondle your chickens? Federal and state health authorities are warning owners of backyard chicken flocks and others who may come in contact with them to take precautions around live poultry as they could be infected with Salmonella. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said Aug. 21 that it continues to investigate 10 separate multi-state outbreaks of Salmonella infection linked to backyard chicken flocks. The outbreaks encompass 48 states and the District of Columbia and have sickened 961 people as of Aug. 21. Only Alaska and Delaware have managed to escape the outbreak. Keep in mind ... Read More

Popular grocery chain Wegmans Food Markets discovered more than 1,000 pounds of its poultry have not been properly inspected by federal officials prior to going on sale. As a result, four types of Wegmans packaged chicken products are now under recall. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the following Wegmans vacuum-sealed chicken products are affected by this recall: Wegmans Italian Flavored Chicken Breast Cutlet with a use-by date of Jan. 24, in approximately one-pound packages Wegmans Brown Sugar Barbecue Seasoned Chicken Breast Cutlet with a use-by date of Jan. 15, in approximately one-pound packages Wegmans Garlic & Fennel Whole Chicken ... Read More

Federal health authorities investigating four massive outbreaks of human Salmonella infection in the U.S. have linked most of the illnesses to folks becoming a little too intimate with their live chickens and ducks. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) addressed its recent warning to owners of backyard flocks – those who raise chicken, ducks, and other poultry for food or as pets – to inform them that kissing and cuddling their chickens and ducks puts them at risk of contracting Salmonellosis. The Salmonella outbreaks have sickened at least 181 in 40 states. The CDC interviewed 96 of ... Read More

The U.S. agency charged with protecting workers from unsafe working conditions has taken the side of the poultry and meatpacking industry, which is increasing inspection line speeds to become more profitable, putting plant employees at risk of injury and U.S. consumers at risk of illness. The Southern Poverty Law Center, Nebraska Appleseed, and 13 other firms and groups representing labor rights petitioned the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in 2013 to put limits on line speeds in meatpacking plants. The petition was filed in response to rules proposed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) allowing meatpacking plants to ... Read More

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is nearly ready to implement a new rule that will increase line speeds at chicken processing plants, saying it will improve efficiency and enhance food safety, but the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a number of consumer-safety groups, and other organizations are urging President Barack Obama to reject the rule. Most significantly, the new rule would increase chicken processing line speeds – the number of birds inspectors visually check per minute — from 140 per minute to 175 per minute. The rule also would effectively remove most USDA inspectors from the line to focus on ... Read More

An outbreak of infections from antibiotic-resistant salmonella linked to chicken processed by Foster Farms continues to sicken people in the United States and Puerto Rico. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had declared the outbreak over on Jan. 16, with 430 reports of illness across 23 states and Puerto Rico. However, since then, 51 more cases were reported and two more states were added to the list. Seven different strains of salmonella Heidelberg have been tied to Foster Farms facilities in California through epidemiologic, laboratory and traceback investigations on the local, state and federal level. According to the ... Read More

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is moving toward phasing out the use of some antibiotics in farm animals processed for meat in an effort to limit antibiotic resistant disease in humans, a growing public health concern that kills at least 23,000 people a year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). When penicillin was discovered in 1928, it was considered a medical miracle, curing patients of a variety of bacterial infections. It wasn’t long before cattle, hog and poultry producers began routinely giving low doses of the drugs to large numbers of farm animals to prevent ... Read More

With U.S. chicken consumption rising steadily, poultry processing plants nationwide are poised to implement changes that will injure and sicken many workers. Instead of meeting rising demand by expanding facilities and hiring additional workers, the poultry processing industry is poised to increase maximum line speeds and rely more heavily on the use of highly toxic chemicals to treat contaminated chicken. A number of reports have been published explaining the dangers of increasing the already-maximized line speeds in chicken plants, which will boost the number of chickens line workers must inspect from 140 per minute to 175 per minute. Regulations that ... Read More

Alabama and several other southern states have a thriving chicken industry that represents a healthy percentage of the annual GDP, especially in the Deep South from Georgia to Louisiana where chicken production rockets year after year. Unfortunately, as we have seen in the past, this unrestrained growth is accompanied by a corporate push to loosen the rules and regulations that protect the environment and keep factory workers relatively safe and healthy, as more recent worker fatalities demonstrate. In Mississippi, Southern Hens Inc., a poultry processor with facilities in Moselle, was cited by the Occupational Safety and Health Administrations (OSHA) for ... Read More

When “Juan,” a worker at an Alabama poultry plant fell while hoisting an 80-pound box of chicken, his supervisors ordered him to get back to work. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), “X-rays later showed two fractured vertebrae. He was fired, and the employer has not paid any of his medical bills.” Juan is just one example among thousands in Alabama’s giant poultry industry, where workers are subjected to brutal, dangerous working conditions that pose a constant risk of injury and illness, all for the sake of providing American dinner tables with plentiful, cheap chicken. According to the ... Read More