Visual Post-Mortem Inspection in Swine Slaughter Establishments

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE <SUBAGY>Food Safety and Inspection Service</SUBAGY> <CFR>9 CFR Part 310</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FSIS 2024-0023]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 0583-AD99</RIN> <SUBJECT>Visual Post-Mortem Inspection in Swine Slaughter Establishments</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> FSIS is proposing to end mandatory mandibular lymph nodes incision and viscera palpation of swine carcasses in all swine slaughter establishments ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> establishments operating under traditional swine slaughter inspection or the New Swine Slaughter Inspection System (NSIS). Mandibular lymph nodes (“lymph nodes”) incision and viscera palpation of swine carcasses are not needed to ensure food safety, as FSIS swine condemnation rates are low and disease conditions that are condemnable defects can be detected visually through other pathological changes in the carcass and its parts. Therefore, FSIS is proposing to amend the meat inspection regulations to remove requirements for establishment sorters to “incise mandibular lymph nodes and palpate the viscera” as part of their sorting activities before FSIS post-mortem inspection in NSIS establishments. FSIS is also proposing to amend the post-mortem swine inspection staffing standards table applicable to swine slaughter establishments operating under traditional inspection. This change would allow FSIS more flexibility to assign inspection program personnel (IPP) based on the establishment's line configuration, other establishment operations, and FSIS staffing needs. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments on the proposed rule must be received on or before October 20, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> FSIS invites interested persons to submit comments on this proposed rule. Comments may be submitted by one of the following methods: • <E T="03">Federal eRulemaking Portal:</E> This website provides the ability to type short comments directly into the comment field on this web page or attach a file for lengthier comments. Go to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> Follow the online instructions at that site for submitting comments. • <E T="03">Mail:</E> Send to Docket Clerk, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food Safety and Inspection Service, 1400 Independence Avenue SW, Mailstop 3758, Washington, DC 20250-3700. • <E T="03">Hand- or courier-delivered submittals:</E> Deliver to 1400 Independence Avenue SW, Jamie L. Whitten Building, Room 350-E, Washington, DC 20250-3700. <E T="03">Instructions:</E> All items submitted by mail or electronic mail must include the Agency name and docket number FSIS-2024-0023. Comments received in response to this docket will be made available for public inspection and posted without change, including any personal information, to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> <E T="03">Docket:</E> For in-person access to background documents or comments received, call (202) 720-5046 to schedule a time to visit the FSIS Docket Room at 1400 Independence Avenue SW, Washington, DC 20250-3700. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Rachel Edelstein, Assistant Administrator, Office of Policy and Program Development, at (202) 205-0495 or <E T="03">docketclerk@usda.gov</E> with a subject line of “Docket No. FSIS 2024-0023.” Individuals in the United States who are deaf, deafblind, hard of hearing, or have a speech disability may dial 711 (TTY, TDD, or TeleBraille) to access telecommunications relay services. Individuals outside the United States should use the relay services offered within their country to make international calls to the point-of-contact in the United States. For a summary of the proposal, please see the rule summary document in docket FSIS-2024-0023 on <E T="03">www.regulations.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> FSIS has been delegated the authority to exercise the functions of the Secretary of Agriculture (7 CFR 2.18, 2.53), as specified in the Federal Meat Inspection Act (FMIA) (21 U.S.C. 601, <E T="03">et seq.</E> ). The FMIA provides that the Secretary shall cause to be made by inspectors an examination and inspection of all amenable species, including swine, before they enter into any establishment in which they are to be slaughtered and the meat and meat food products thereof are to be used in commerce (21 U.S.C. 603(a)). All amenable species found to show symptoms of disease are to be set apart and slaughtered separately; the carcasses of such animals are to be subject to a careful inspection (21 U.S.C. 603(a)). The FMIA also requires inspectors to conduct a post-mortem examination and inspection, and any necessary reinspection, of carcasses and parts of amenable species prepared for human food (21 U.S.C. 604). The FMIA requires that all carcasses and parts found to be adulterated be condemned (21 U.S.C. 604). <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  Under the FMIA, a meat or meat food product is adulterated, among other circumstances, if it bears or contains any poisonous or deleterious substance that may render it injurious to health; it is unhealthful, unwholesome, or otherwise unfit for human consumption; it was prepared, packaged, or held under insanitary conditions whereby it may have been rendered injurious to health; or if damage or inferiority has been concealed in any manner (21 U.S.C. 601(m)(1),(3),(4),and (8)). </FTNT> Under traditional swine inspection, Agency inspectors inspect the head, viscera, and carcass of each animal for localized defects and direct establishment employees to remove the defects through trimming. Under current Agency instructions for examining carcasses during traditional swine post-mortem inspection, FSIS online inspectors are to perform a careful examination and inspection of the carcasses and parts of each animal to inspect for animal diseases and defects. This examination includes the incision of the mandibular lymph nodes in heads and the palpation of lymph nodes ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> mesenteric, portal, and bronchial lymph nodes) in the viscera. FSIS online inspectors identify and retain carcasses and parts with lesions or conditions that might render the meat unfit for human consumption and require subsequent inspection by an FSIS veterinarian. The FSIS veterinarian next thoroughly examines carcasses and parts retained for this reason to determine whether they should be condemned. Establishment personnel then dispose of condemned carcasses and their parts under FSIS supervision in accordance with 9 CFR part 314. The meat post-mortem inspection regulations for establishments operating under traditional inspection set forth swine inspection staffing standards based on several factors. Under the current staffing standards, FSIS assigns a certain number of online post-mortem inspectors per line per shift to perform post-mortem inspection of the head, viscera, and carcass at inspection stations at fixed points along the line (see Table 4, 9 CFR 310.1(b)(3)(ii)). FSIS assigns up to seven online post-mortem inspectors per line per shift to cover these head, viscera, and carcass inspection stations. In some establishments, one inspector may perform all the post-mortem inspection procedures on each carcass and its parts (see Table 1, 9 CFR 310.1(b)(3)(ii)). In 2019, the Agency published a final rule to modernize swine slaughter inspection (84 FR 52300, October 1, 2019). The rule established an optional new swine slaughter inspection system, the NSIS, for market hog slaughter establishments. In establishments operating under the NSIS, establishment sorters are required to identify any condemnable conditions or defects before carcasses are presented to the FSIS online post-mortem inspectors. Establishment sorters are also required to “incise mandibular lymph nodes and palpate the viscera” to detect the presence of animal diseases as part of their sorting activities before FSIS post-mortem inspection (9 CFR 310.26(b)). FSIS stated in the 2019 final rule that it would evaluate ending mandatory lymph nodes incision and viscera palpation (84 FR 52300, 52313-52314). FSIS intended to allow NSIS establishments to apply for waivers from the lymph nodes incision and viscera palpation regulatory requirements, provided establishments submitted documentation supporting that the presence of animal diseases is not reasonably likely to occur. Waivers would then be used to gather information on the public health impact of such sorting activities to support potential future rulemaking (84 52300, 52314). However, after reviewing FSIS condemnation data (discussed below), the Agency has more recently decided that waivers are unnecessary, as FSIS has sufficient data and information to move forward with rulemaking. <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Visual Post-Mortem Inspection as an Effective Measure To Ensure Food Safety</HD> FSIS swine carcass condemnation data demonstrate that removing the requirement for lymph nodes incision and viscera palpation (to detect possible abnormality in the lymph nodes) during post-mortem swine inspection may improve food safety by reducing opportunities for introduction of contamination. FSIS condemnation data supports that lymph node incision and viscera palpation are not needed to identify the conditions of condemnable swine carcasses at post-mortem inspection. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> Swine disease conditions for which a carcass may be condemned ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> arthritis, pyometra, and splenic torsion) are primarily identified during the visual observation component of post-mortem swine inspection. Historically, incision of lymph nodes and palpation of the visc ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 42k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━