Newspaper

11:22 AM PST on Thursday, March 6, 2008

Brendan McKenna Special to the Press Enterprise

WASHINGTON - The recall of a record amount of ground beef prompted by conditions at the Westland Hallmark Meat Co. in Chino may be the "most disturbing" concern before a House budget panel today.

But it wasn't the only food safety concern raised by Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., chairwoman of the Appropriations subcommittee for agriculture, rural development and the Food and Drug Administration.

Citing e-coli and salmonella outbreaks and the United States Humane Society investigation at Westland/Hallmark, Ms. DeLauro leveled stinging criticism against the USDA undersecretary for food safety.

"There is something seriously wrong with our system when it is disease outbreaks that are catching the failures at these plants and not the Food Safety and Inspection Service," she said.

"It is your responsibility. It is not the Humane Society or the disease outbreak" that should be catching failures in the inspection system, she added.

Dr. Richard Raymond, the USDA undersecretary, defended the work that his organization is doing and said food inspection work is improving.

"We still have work to do," Mr. Raymond conceded. But he urged the appropriators not to take out their frustrations on his agency's budget.

Budget cuts would lead to further cuts in an agency that already has a roughly 7 percent vacancy rate among its front-line inspectors, he said.

But the statistics Raymond cited to show the inspection service's success in preventing food-borne illness drew the ire of DeLauro.

But the statistics Dr. Raymond cited drew the ire of Ms. DeLauro.

"There is little data to back up that assertion and I wonder why you keep making it," she said. The USDA inspections "may show only that the company tested had no e-coli on that particular day."

Dr. Raymond said his agency has already made some changes in the way it collects data to make it more reflective of national conditions.