Kendrick Meek: “I just wanted to say if anyone has ever suffered from salmonella from eating unsafe meat and poultry, they would…”

“I just wanted to say if anyone has ever suffered from salmonella from eating unsafe meat and poultry, they would understand the significance of this amendment. Why should our consumers be subjected to this very illness-causing disease and have these foreign countries being able to bring in meats and poultry without an equivalent kind of thing? In speaking to the USDA, the USDA cannot clearly speak to this amendment because they do not have any facts, any substantive facts, that will prove that what they are accepting is equivalent, because last year, the last time, it looks as if USDA is not really enforcing the congressional directive, and we need this tough new inspection system, and it is a key part of it, to take these samples of meat. In closing, I want to thank the Congress, because this is a very, very essential matter to the health and welfare of our Nation.”