140 Dead Chickens/Minute Wasn't Fast Enough, So FDA Loosens Poultry Inspection Standards
No hormones in these l'il Schwarzeneggers.
"The Obama administration is on the verge of dramatically scaling back the US Department of Agriculture's oversight of the nation's largest chicken and turkey slaughterhouseswhile also allowing companies to speed up their kill lines.
Currently, each factory-scale slaughterhouse has four USDA inspectors overseeing kill lines churning out up to 140 birds every minute. Under the USDA's new plan, a single federal inspector would oversee lines killing as many as 175 birds per minute. That would mean there are three fewer inspectors for a production line running 25 percent faster. (The line rates at turkey slaughterhouses are, for obvious reasons, slower, but would also be sped up under the new rules).
After the idea was floated last year, it was met by massive pushback from food-safety and worker advocates, who argued that the combination of more speed and fewer inspectors would lead to dangerous conditions for both consumers and workers."
http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2013/04/usda-inspectors-poultry-kill-lines-chicken