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USDA withdrew Salmonella poultry rule after top inauguration donor's trade group lobbied against it

USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service formally withdrew its proposed "Salmonella Framework for Raw Poultry Products" rule on April 25, 2025, days after the National Chicken Council publicly opposed it and after reporting revealed that member company Pilgrim's Pride had made a $5 million donation to the Trump-Vance inaugural committee, the single largest inauguration donation. The rule would have set the first enforceable Salmonella contamination limits in raw chicken and turkey and given FSIS authority to stop sale of contaminated poultry.

Jurisdiction
Federal
Location
Washington, D.C.

Abuses documented

Actors

On April 25, 2025, USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) formally withdrew its proposed "Salmonella Framework for Raw Poultry Products" rule via a Federal Register notice, preceded by an FSIS constituent-update announcement the day before. The proposal would have set enforceable Salmonella contamination limits in raw chicken and turkey for the first time and given FSIS authority to stop the sale of contaminated poultry.

The withdrawal followed public opposition from the National Chicken Council, an industry trade group, days after reporting revealed that Pilgrim's Pride — a JBS-owned poultry company and National Chicken Council member — had donated $5 million to the Trump-Vance inaugural committee, the largest single inauguration donation on record. FSIS cited more than 7,000 public comments raising concerns about legal authority, feasibility, and small-producer impact as its stated basis for withdrawal.

Food-safety reporters and public-health researchers noted the proposal's withdrawal removed a tool public-health officials had sought for years to reduce poultry-linked Salmonella illness, which sickens an estimated 1.35 million people annually in the United States.

Updates

2026-01-14 — FSIS held public meeting on Salmonella-reduction strategy [6]

FSIS convened a public meeting where Under Secretary Mindy Brashears outlined a "tailored strategies" approach to reducing Salmonella in poultry, emphasizing modern detection tools rather than the withdrawn uniform standard.

Why we recorded this

Equal treatment under the law means regulatory decisions should rest on public health evidence, not campaign generosity. USDA withdrew a proposed rule that would have set the first enforceable Salmonella limits in raw poultry days after its largest inauguration donor and that donor's trade group publicly opposed it. This archive records when agency rulemaking appears to track donor access rather than the public interest it is meant to serve.

Sources

  1. Salmonella Framework for Raw Poultry Products — Notice of Withdrawal — Federal Register primary accessed July 9, 2026
  2. USDA Scraps Rules That Would Have Stopped Sale of Salmonella-Tainted Chicken — Civil Eats secondary accessed July 9, 2026
  3. USDA Repeals New Poultry Salmonella Standards — Food and Power secondary accessed July 9, 2026
  4. Trump's Top Inaugural Donor Is Poultry Company Fined for Price Fixing and Antitrust Violations — Sludge investigative accessed July 9, 2026
  5. USDA withdraws proposal to reduce Salmonella in poultry — CIDRAP (University of Minnesota) secondary accessed July 9, 2026
  6. Exploring Practical Strategies To Reduce Salmonella in Poultry Products — Federal Register primary accessed July 11, 2026

See also