
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, March 24, 1994                   TAG: 9403240171
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: associated press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

SAFETY LABELS ORDERED FOR MEAT

For the second time in a year, the Agriculture Department has told supermarkets and food companies to put safe-handling labels on raw meat and poultry.

And by giving the food industry more generous deadlines than in the past, the department may avoid the kind of lawsuit that crippled its first effort. The department announced its new rules Wednesday.

The first effort was thwarted by a federal judge who agreed with the food industry last fall that the department imposed the labels too quickly.

The department had said it acted in response to a public health emergency that included the deaths of children who ate contaminated hamburgers.

But this time around, the department is giving retailers more time to comply. The department also took more time than it needed to publish the rules, which could have been published soon after Dec. 20.

The labels will tell consumers how to handle and cook raw meat and poultry in a way to lower the risk of disease from salmonella, E. coli and other bacteria found in animals and responsible for up to 9,000 deaths a year.

by CNB