Two U.S. federal food inspectors have warned that products like “feces, sex organs, and bladders” can make pork consumed by Americans, “unsafe” under a new Trump-era rule.
NBC reports, that under the New Swine Inspection System, the number of inspectors who check the pork for quality will be reduced. Traditionally, this number was at least seven. It may now be just two or three people.
Removal of federal speed limits to inspect hog meat is also a part of the new rules. Currently, the speed limit is set at processing 1,106 hog carcasses per hour.
This pilot project is currently underway in five U.S. plants. 35 more will soon adopt it. In all, these facilities produce 92 percent of the pork that Americans eat.
The inspectors interviewed by NBC include Jill Mauer and Anthony Vallone of the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS). NBC also consulted with four other inspectors working at these plants—all of them shared identical concerns in sworn affidavits.
Mauer reportedly said that consumers were being misled. And that the meat was very likely to contain alarmingly unwanted items:
“The consumer’s being duped. They believe that it actually is getting federally inspected when there’s no one there to even watch or do anything about anything.”
Your sausages could even contain feces, sex organs, toenails, bladders, and unwanted hair, according to the report.
2 federal inspectors warn that U.S. pork will soon be “mystery” meat with feces, sex organs, toenails, bladders & unwanted hair after the Trump admin. rolled back inspection rules for pork. They say they won't even eat meat processed by their own employer.https://t.co/TXhBQS9Dmd
— Brian Harrison, Ph.D. 🏳️🌈 (@brianfharrison) December 17, 2019
The latest news has disgusted Twitterati. “How does this make America great? I hope everyone enjoys their bacon now,” wrote one person. “One can only hope that the pork industry has more pride in their products than Trump has in America,” another said.
Things are getting missed, either deliberately or because the government is run by people who don’t give a rat’s ass that there might be a rat’s ass in your breakfast sausage. https://t.co/rk566qKHbK
— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) December 18, 2019
