United States: The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) terminated its initiative to implement salmonella limits for poultry along with turkey products in factory-made chicken products during the Biden administration.
More about the news
The Food Safety and Inspection Service under the USDA announced last week that it had withdrawn its proposed regulation, which spent three years under development, according to The Associated Press.
The agency analyzed 7,000 public comments about the proposed regulation while indicating they would determine if current rulings need changes, US News reported.
Under the discontinued proposed regulation, poultry processing facilities need to surpass particular salmonella threshold levels while simultaneously testing for six pathogen strains linked with human diseases.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has dropped plans to require poultry companies to limit #salmonella bacteria in chicken and turkey products, ending a Biden Administration effort to reduce #foodborneillness. #publichealth https://t.co/hnHp2Qc3Ox
— HealthDay News (@HealthDayTweets) April 28, 2025
Products that tested positive for specific salmonella strains or exceeded established limits would be prohibited from being sold with follow-up product recollection, according to AP.
The proposed action strategy was designed to block 125,000 salmonella infections in chickens and eliminate 43,000 infections in Turkey each year.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that salmonella leads to 1.35 million annual infections in addition to killing approximately 420 people in the United States.
The National Chicken Council, as part of the industry, received approval for the withdrawal decision.
The industry group declared that this rule was invalid based on scientific standards while contending that the new procedure would lead to higher prices and unnecessary waste output, yet it would lack substantive health advantages.
🚨 #ICYMI: USDA-FSIS withdrew its proposed regulatory framework for Salmonella in poultry, designed to reduce the cases of poultry-caused human salmonellosis, saying that additional consideration is needed based on public comments.
— Food Safety Magazine (@FoodSafetyMag) April 27, 2025
👉 MORE: https://t.co/tyZ2nYn5vY#foodsafety pic.twitter.com/QP4gDMS9zp
According to a senior vice president of the group, Ashley Peterson, “We remain committed to further reducing salmonella and fully support food safety regulations and policies that are based on sound science,” US News reported.
Furthermore, as per Sandra Eskin, a former USDA official who helped draft the rule, the decision “sends the clear message that the Make America Healthy Again initiative does not care about the thousands of people who get sick from preventable foodborne salmonella infections linked to poultry.”