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Ranchers.net

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently announced that four Chinese poultry processors have permission to begin shipping meat to the U.S.

The nightmare for U.S. consumers? The Chinese-processed chicken will be labeled as ‘made in America!’

Even though the Chinese poultry processors are only allowed to ship cooked meat from U.S.-raised chickens, many in the United States are alarmed that our leaders would allow such a deal to go down in the first place. After all, China is notorious for its food safety problems.

Concerns among the public are warranted when you consider that the CDC estimates 325,000 Americans are hospitalized every year from food poisoning, with 5,000 resultant deaths. On top of that — according to United States Census data – food imports doubled in this country from 1997 to 2008. Over 60 percent of imported food comes from developing nations, such as China.

Of the massive amount of imported food coming to America, the FDA only has the resources to inspect less than 2 percent. This is a major problem because many nations have less food safety regulations than the United States.

But even for the imported chicken from China being inspected, Chinese processors won’t be required by the USDA to follow point-of-origin labeling laws because the chicken will already be cooked. This is another huge concern for consumers, as there will be no proof where their chicken came from. It will even lead to other problems such as food counterfeiting — something that so far has largely been restricted to fish markets.

Not having proper labels also makes it impossible for American consumers to tell if the chicken they want to buy was processed in the U.S. or China, placing a huge burden on families who wish to stay away from foreign foods.

Then, to add fuel to the fire, the USDA does not even plan to require its own regulators to supervise the Chinese processors on the premises! This means there will be little to no control over how the cooked chicken is processed in China. It’s a drastic threat to the health of US consumers and something that must be stopped. China is already notorious for food safety issues. How much longer are we going to continue to hand over control of various US industries to China?

Contact your congressional representative and urge them to stand against this latest agreement between the USDA and China. Send this to five of your friends and have them do the same!
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