The FSIS Equivalency Determination for China was Flawed
In 2004, the PRC had requested that it be allowed to export processed poultry products of domestic Chinese origin to the United States. After it conducted a document review of the PRC food safety system, FSIS dispatched auditors in December 2004 to visit PRC food safety government offices, laboratories and a sample of poultry plants (three slaughter and four processing facilities) that could be eligible to export to the United States. The deficiencies that the auditors found included:
1) The PRC's food safety agency, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ), did not exercise control over all of the food processing establishments under its jurisdiction;
2) AQSIQ veterinarians did not consistently enforce FSIS food safety standards;
3) Residue testing methodologies differed from those used by FSIS and in one laboratory, the sampling procedures could lead to cross-contamination;
4) Testing for salmonella was not being consistently performed;
5) Not all documents had been translated into English;
6) Food safety deficiencies were found in five of the seven food establishments visited.
The sanitation issues were so egregious in two of the facilities that FSIS auditors would have recommended that they be delisted or made ineligible to export to the United States.
[emphasis mine]
FSIS auditors returned to the PRC in July 2005 to visit four slaughter facilities. In all cases, the FSIS auditors found that the PRC had not stationed government veterinarians to perform ante-mortem and post-mortem inspections of poultry. In one establishment, FSIS not only discovered a deficient Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) plan, but also encountered serious sanitation issues. The FSIS auditors remarked that had these four plants been eligible to export to the United States, they would have been delisted for failing to meet critical requirements of U.S. food safety standards. [emphasis mine]
On November 23, 2005, FSIS proposed a rule that would grant the PRC partial equivalency to export processed poultry products to the U.S. provided that the raw poultry came from either the United States or Canada (70 FR 70746-70749). The comment period closed on January 23, 2006, and the overwhelming majority of the 34 comments the agency received were in opposition to the proposed regulation. In fact, the only positive comments came from entrepreneurs from the PRC who stood to benefit from this rule.
The process that ensued subsequent to the closing of the comment period was astonishing. The final regulation was transmitted by USDA to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review on April 18, 2006. OMB cleared the rule after only one day's analysis. On April 20, 2006, PRC President Hu Jintao visited President George W. Bush at the White House where it was announced that the rule had been finalized. The final rule was eventually published in the April 24, 2006 Federal Register (71 FR 20867-20871).
According to an audit report published by the USDA Office of the Inspector General in August 2008, FSIS was prepared to grant the PRC equivalency status for slaughtered poultry. That determination had not been made public until the release of this particular audit report. For the PRC to be able to export processed poultry products of domestic Chinese origin would require a new rule.
It should be noted that the PRC never certified any plants to export processed poultry products to the United States under the April 24, 2006 rule. Instead, the PRC government renewed its effort to be able to export processed poultry of domestic Chinese origin.
In December 2006, then-Under Secretary for Food Safety Richard Raymond reportedly pledged to PRC officials that he would begin the regulatory process to amend the equivalency status for the PRC so that it could start exporting processed poultry of domestic Chinese origin to the United States.
This rule never was proposed formally and then the Congress passed a prohibition against the expenditure of any funds to implement regulations that would permit the importation of processed poultry products from the PRC.
