Review set on meat-plant inspections in pandemic

WASHINGTON — The inspector general for the U.S. Agriculture Department is reviewing the agency’s handling of inspections at meatpacking plants during the coronavirus pandemic, in part to determine how it protected front-line meat inspectors, according to a letter obtained by The Washington Post.

The review is taking place in response to a call from Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., who asked the inspectors general of the USDA and Labor Department in August to determine whether actions by the Trump administration helped spread the coronavirus among workers at the plants.

“Hardworking Americans who are serving on the front lines during this crisis — and all meat processing plant workers — deserve answers,” Bennet said in a statement to the Post. “I’m glad the USDA Inspector General is making it a priority to get to the bottom of this.”

Meat and poultry plants were some of the earliest coronavirus hot spots in the United States last spring. Workers in the plants process dozens of animals a minute, standing side by side for hours at a time, making impossible the physical distancing recommended by public health experts to mitigate the spread of the virus.

The administration of former President Donald Trump responded with an executive order in April that declared meat and poultry plants to be critical infrastructure, a move intended to keep the plants open but that labor advocates said would endanger workers. The Trump administration also took a lax approach to enforcement, declining to issue emergency Labor Department standards addressing the pandemic and issuing relatively small fines to meat plants where workers had died.

The inspector general’s investigation will look into how the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, which oversees federal meat inspectors who ensure the safety of the nation’s meat supply, responded to the coronavirus outbreak to ensure inspections continued at slaughter houses and processing plants.

Sarah Little, vice president of communications at the North American Meat Institute, a major industry trade group, said the industry had spent more than $1.5 billion since last spring in “comprehensive protections.”

“The meat and poultry industry is focused on continuing these effective protections, reaffirmed by the Biden Administration, and ensuring front-line meat and poultry workers are vaccinated as soon as possible, as employers, unions, civil rights leaders, and governments around the world agree these workers should be among the first vaccinated,” Little said in an emailed statement.