I spoke with Tony Corbo of Public Citizen late this afternoon and he did not have good things to tell me. A meeting was held with the new Under Secretary Richard Raymond and the consumer groups. He said Bush wanted to have a risk based Inspection system in place before he left office. He said PBIS was not working and the entire FSIS as we know it would be overhauled. Seems as though major cuts are on the way. He mentioned the Age of the workforce and the cost of the workforce and there was no wiggle room in FSIS due to so much of the budget going to salary. Carol Tucker-Foreman and Caroline Smith-Dewall are all for this new process. Carol is with Safe food Coalition and Caroline is with Center for Science.

Stan