A doctor has petitioned the USDA and Food Safety Inspection Service to request that livestock lungs be allowed to be saved and sold as human food.
Dr. Jonathan Reisman of Philadelphia, PA, writes that rule 9CFR 310.16(a)—the rule that prohibits the consumption of livestock lungs—be amended because the “rule is not based on concern over actual lung pathology in animals.”
Reisman said that the rule is based on studies done by USDA around 1969, in which scientists looked at animal lungs and found contaminants in the airways—spores, dust, pollen, and aspirated rumen contents.
“These lungs were generally pathology-free, and it was solely because of these supposed contaminants that the rule was amended to declare lungs unfit for human consumption,” he wrote.
Reisman continued there is no medical reason to suspect that eating the small amount of contaminants would pose a health risk.” Food policy should be evidence-based and scientific, and this rule is neither,” he concluded.
“Food policy should aim to maintain or improve the health of the population, and this rule does not contribute to that mission.”
