A risk and benefit assessment for visual-only meat inspection of indoor and outdoor pigs in the United Kingdom

Green offal inspection of cattle, small ruminants and pigs in the United Kingdom: Impact assessment of changes in the inspection protocol on likelihood of detection of selected hazards

“…Although considered amongst the most important meat-borne public health hazards, human pathogenic Escherichia coli and Yersinia enterocolitica were not selected in cattle and small ruminants because the former hazard does not cause detectable green offal lesions in the common slaughter age of these species, while the meat-borne human cases associated with the latter are strongly attributed to pork (EFSA, 2011). Comparisons with hazard identification performed in the context of recent FSA's projects (Hill et al, 2013(Hill et al, , 2014 and EFSA scientific opinions on meat inspection (EFSA, 2011(EFSA, , 2013a(EFSA, , 2013b revealed no additional hazards that should have been selected for further assessment.…”

“…These findings are consistent with those of two other studies which found minor changes in risk for animal health regarding TB in pigs and cattle with a change from current to visual-only inspection. However, these studies considered the entire post-mortem inspection process, including, for example, the inspection of head and lungs (Hill et al, 2013(Hill et al, , 2014. A Danish risk assessment related to substitution of current with visual-only inspection of green offal in finisher pigs identified TB as the only relevant hazard, but without an increase of the related public health risk (Alban et al, 2009).…”

“…Finding TB-suspect lesions in organs other than green offal leads to re-categorisation of carcases as suspect ("high risk") and would trigger subsequent detailed inspection of green offal that includes incision of the lymph nodes. Nevertheless, recent risk assessments (Hill et al, 2013(Hill et al, , 2014, addressing the risk arising from moving to visual-only post mortem inspection of pigs and cattle in the UK, concluded that the TB risk would be negligible to public health.…”

“…Therefore, it was suggested by EFSA to limit manual handling during post-mortem examination to "higher risk" pigs and cattle, identified through FCI analysis and ante-mortem inspection (EFSA, 2011(EFSA, , 2013a. Although currently there is not enough data to reliably assess this benefit of visual-only compared with traditional meat inspection (Hill et al, 2013), in the case of green offal inspection, concerns about cross-contamination are even bigger, as any manipulation of the stomach and intestines can lead to leakage/ spillage of digesta/faeces and subsequent contamination of other parts of the carcase with important public health hazards.…”

Assessment of potential contribution of official meat inspection and abattoir process hygiene to biological safety assurance of final beef and pork carcasses

“…Rather, some modifications/revisions of meat inspection are suggested nowadays; i.e. to carry out post-mortem meat inspection as much as possible only visually ("hands-off-meat") since the most of the pathological conditions in slaughtered cattle and pigs are detectable without the use of inspector's hand/knife (EFSA, 2004;Hill et al, 2013). Also, to increase the effectiveness of process hygiene for control of hazards present in/on faeces and skin, previous assessment of hide cleanliness, as an important part of the ante-mortem inspection procedures, is ultimate precondition.…”