A recent USDA report questioning the system used by Canadian food inspectors for meat, poultry and eggs is expected to lead to another review of procedures

A recent USDA report questioning the system used by Canadian food inspectors for meat, poultry and eggs is expected to lead to another review of procedures as Canadian officials address proposed corrective actions.The report stems from a series of “onsite equivalence verification” audits by USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) last September at seven slaughter and processing plants and other Canadian offices and facilities. FSIS also verified that Canada’s Central Competent Authority (CCA) took the corrective actions offered by the U.S. agency after a 2014 audit, the report noted.The most recent findings, however, uncovered that Canadian inspectors may not have conducted complete carcass-by-carcass, post-mortem inspections to make sure that processed meat was not contaminated by “feces, milk or ingesta” before being stamped with a mark of inspection. Such contamination is considered a pathway for pathogen transmission, including E. coli, the report noted.Between January 2013 and December 2015, U.S. officials rejected a total of 1.7 million pounds of Canadian meat and poultry at the point of entry, and about 130,000 pounds of that total were found to have been contaminated with fecal matter, ingesta of other pathogens. A total of about 4.8 billion pounds of meat and poultry were exported to the United States from Canada in the same period, the report said.The report’s findings were released this spring after preliminary findings were delivered to Canadian officials last September. FSIS said the findings about a lack of carcass-by-carcass inspection “raise significant questions about the Canadian system and will need to be addressed by the CCA” in order to maintain ongoing equivalence to the U.S. inspection system.“Canada and the U.S. have different approaches to verify that carcasses are free of contamination, and neither Canada nor the U.S. tolerates contamination on food animal carcasses,” a spokeswoman for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency told CBC News. “Both Canada and the U.S. have rules that prohibit the production of meat from carcasses that are contaminated.”