WASHINGTON — The US Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) recently stated in a constituent update that it would extend the comment period until Jan. 17, 2025, for its proposed rule on reducing Salmonella in raw poultry products.

The original deadline to make comments was Oct. 7, but it was extended to Nov. 7 before this latest announcement.

“After the initial extension, stakeholders, including consumer groups, industry associations, and academia, submitted requests for FSIS to further extend the comment period to allow sufficient time to consider the proposal and supporting documentation to formulate comments on these documents,” FSIS said in its latest update.

In October, four consumer interest groups pushed the agency to extend the comment period by six months. 

The other previous formal request for an extension came from Representatives Steve Womack (R-Ark.) and Jim Costa (D-Calif.), the Congressional Chicken Caucus co-chairs, during September. The congressmen asked the USDA for an additional 180 days. Like the consumer interest groups, the members of Congress believed the proposed rule lacked clarity and would raise questions that could benefit from an extension of the comment period.

The agency announced its plan in late July, which would establish final product standards to keep levels of Salmonella at or above 10 colony forming units (CFU) per gram/mL and any detectable level of at least one of the Salmonella serotypes of public health significance from entering commerce. 

The proposal also addresses poultry establishments’ efforts to develop a microbial monitoring program to prevent pathogen contamination throughout the slaughter system.

The USDA said that approximately 1 million human infections occur from Salmonella bacteria each year in the United States, according to numbers from the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. FSIS also estimated 125,000 chicken-associated and almost 43,000 turkey-associated illnesses during 2021.

Comments can still be made in the Federal Register using the federal eRulemaking portal.