USDA watchdog probes COVID measures
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s inspector general has launched an investigation into the agency’s handling of COVID-19 outbreaks at meat processing plants, including whether officials took adequate steps to protect federal inspectors working in the facilities.
Meat and poultry slaughterhouses were early epicenters in the pandemic and the department’s press to keep inspectors working in the plants quickly provoked complaints from the union representing them that the USDA wasn’t providing adequate safety protections. At least four meat inspectors had died of COVID by May.
The investigation will include an examination of the USDA’s actions following an April 28 executive order by Donald Trump to keep meat processing plants open after local officials ordered several major sites closed because of mounting health risks.
The administration never issued mandatory workplace COVID safety regulations, opting instead for voluntary guidance.
At least 57,526 meatpacking workers have been infected with COVID and at least 284 of them have died, according to a compilation of media reports by the Food & Environment Reporting Network. As many as 1 in 12 cases of the virus in the early stages of the pandemic can be tied to outbreaks at meatpacking plants, according to a study.
Democratic Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado, who requested the investigation, said the outbreaks raise “serious questions about any federal actions that may have contributed to the spread of the virus in these facilities.”
Deltrick Johnson, deputy counsel in the USDA’s Office of the Inspector General, said the investigation will examine what actions were taken to ensure safety of inspectors working in the plants, whether they had adequate protective equipment and what procedures were followed when an inspector tested positive.
The probe will specifically look at how the USDA’s Food Safety Inspection Service, which employs meat inspectors, spent $33 million it was allocated in the CARES COVID relief act Congress passed last March and how it responded to Trump’s April executive order, Johnson said.
The USDA and its FSIS unit didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
The probe was previously reported by the Washington Post.
The investigation will also determine whether inspectors were transferred between slaughterhouses, Johnson said. Critics have argued the practice may have contributed to the spread of the disease from one facility to another.
Sarah Little, a spokeswoman for the North American Meat Institute, an industry trade association, said processors to date have spent “more than $1.5 billion in comprehensive protections” against COVID.
“The meat and poultry industry is focused on continuing these effective protections” and “ensuring frontline meat and poultry workers are vaccinated as soon as possible,” she said.