食品伙伴网讯 据外媒报道,近日美国食品安全网站进行的一项调查显示,自2008年以来美国农业部(USDA)对进口肉类的检验量减少了60%,并且美国农业部食品安全与检验局(FSIS)也变得更加不透明,公布肉类工厂的审查报告也不太及时。
部分原文报道如下:
Sending U.S. Department of Agriculture officials overseas to inspect meat and poultry plants whose products are destined for American consumers has long been a bedrock of our modern import safety system, but an investigation by Food Safety News found, the number of countries audited by U.S. officials each year has declined by more than 60 percent since 2008.
The USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service has also become less transparent. The agency has failed to make audit reports public in a timely fashion and only revealed which countries have been audited in the past two years this week following multiple inquiries by Food Safety News and a blog post by former Under Secretary for Food Safety Richard Raymond questioning the lack of online records.
With an increasingly global food system - around 17 percent of the U.S. food supply is now imported - U.S. consumers are directly impacted by food safety practices and regulatory systems abroad.
Just last month, a massive E. coli O157:H7 beef recall from XL Foods in Alberta, Canada, affected 2.5 million pounds of beef that had been shipped to U.S. meat processors and grocery chains. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are no known illnesses linked to XL Foods in the United States, but at least 16 Canadians have fallen ill.