Senator Chuck Schumer rode the Obama administration up one side and down the other this Sunday for what he calls are “plans the USDA has” to green-light chicken raised and processed in China to be exported to the United States, despite China’s disgusting food safety record.

Later that day, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) responded to the attack by saying that the “USDA has not found China’s poultry slaughter system to be equivalent [yet] and therefore poultry slaughtered in China is not allowed to be imported to the United States.” Yet.

Why the Senator got himself all worked up in a lather is not known (maybe he knows something we don’t), as the final USDA audit on Chinese poultry slaughter system has yet to be released.

The audit, which has not been released by the USDA, will reveal whether the USDA will grant the Chinese slaughter system “equivalence” to the U.S. food safety standards (as they did in August with Chinese processing facilities), which would allow  chickens raised and processed in China to be sold in the U.S.

The USDA says consumers needn’t worry about the food safety freak show in China, because according to their lame fact-sheet: “Consumers should know that any processed poultry from China will be produced under equivalent food safety standards and conditions as U.S. poultry.” Phew. I feel so much better now. NOT.

What they forgot to mention was, that Americans won’t have a clue where the chicken came from because there is no country of origin labeling requirement for the processed food.

Tony Corbo, senior lobbyist at Food & Water Watch, said “Even though we’re going to be shipping our poultry to China, there’s no guarantee that that’s what we’re going to be getting back.”

So, good luck trying to figure out whether that McNugget your about to pop in your mouth came from the food safety freak show in China.

For six years, American dogs have been the sentinels for our society, showing us how deeply flawed our food safety system is. The thousand of dogs who became ill and hundreds that have died should serve as a warning that poultry imported from China is dangerous.

Read more about it, here:
Schumer Statement Blasting USDA [ Press Release]
Schumer: Chicken Slaughtered, Raised In China Could Pose Major Risk [CBS]
Schumer: Chicken from China poses food safety threat [New York Post]
Correcting the Record [USDA]