Chinese Chicken Proves Unfit

Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch, has released a statement on the USDA’s decision to let processed chicken from China enter U.S. borders. This decision was made a few weeks ago, but yesterday USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service admitted that China’s poultry slaughter system is not equivalent to the U.S. system. That means China is not eligible to ship poultry products made from Chinese-raised chickens to the U.S.

Ms. Hauter said, “China’s food safety record is horrific and there are serious concerns with avian influenza. We have also just learned that USDA Secretary Vilsack is scheduled to visit China next week. We sincerely hope that this visit will not be a prelude to a new audit of the Chinese poultry slaughter system. USDA should stop wasting taxpayers’ dollars giving China third, fourth, and fifth chances to clean up their act. USDA’s priority should be assuring that the poultry consumed in America is safe, not bending over backward to pave the way for Chinese chicken imports into the United States.”

There will be no USDA inspector stationed in the Chinese poultry processing facilities to verify that those corporations are not using Chinese-rasied chicken. And because the poultry is processed, there will be no country of origin label on the product, so you will not know that the chicken or turkey was processed in China. You can read the report of the audit conducted in China in March 2013.