Because the USDA does not consider Salmonella an adulterant, contaminated raw poultry and meat products can be legally sold to retailers and consumers. That issue that was highlighted when chicken produced by Foster Farms was identified as the source of a Salmonella outbreak twice this year and the company did not issue a recall. If you recall, Foster Farms’ response was “It is your fault. You did not cook it properly. You have to use a thermometer to tell when it has been cooked properly.”

How do you tackle a public health problem that sickens 1.3 million people every year? In a step in the right direction, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (USDA FSIS) has decided to abandon its decades-long “Buyer Beware” Salmonella strategy and made a new plan. A Salmonella Action Plan.

At the top of the list is “modernizing the outdated poultry slaughter inspection system,” which FSIS estimates will result in a reduction of at least 4,286 cases of salmonellosis each year. Also included in the plan: developing new performance and sampling standards, and creating enforcement strategies that link sanitary dressing problems to Salmonella issues.

“This plan is a step in the right direction, but a more straightforward approach would be to declare Salmonella an adulterant,” said food safety attorney Fred Pritzker, publisher of Food Poisoning Bulletin.

At least 523 people have been sickened in the two Foster Farms Salmonella outbreaks announced this year. The current outbreak includes cases from 23 states. The six outbreak strains, several of which are resistant to multiple drugs, are causing illness that is more severe than is typically reported from Salmonella. The hospitalization rate is twice the average, and patients have developed the life-threatening complication of the bacterial infection entering the bloodstream at three times the average rate.

Of the 1.3 million Americans sickened by Salmonella each year, about 15,000 are hospitalized and about 4,000 die. Salmonella infections can also trigger long-term health conditions such as reactive arthritis, inflammation of the heart, spine, tendons and eye membranes. Direct medical costs associated with the treatment of Salmonella poisoning total about $1 million each day, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).