Dr. Elisabeth Hagen, USDA’s Undersecretary for Food Safety, announced today that she is stepping down.  Hagen has served as the nation’s highest-ranking food safety official since August 2010.  “Today I am announcing that I will be embarking in mid-December on a new challenge in the private sector.  I am grateful to Secretary Vilsack for the opportunity to serve as Under Secretary for Food Safety and be part of his leadership team,” Hagen said in a statement released today.

“The chicken industry appreciates all of the hard work and dedication by Dr. Hagen in improving food safety and public health.  She has been a true advocate for science-based regulatory policy and we praise all of her work towards modernizing the poultry inspection system.  She has always been willing and open to engage in discussions with NCC and members of the chicken industry and we will wish her continued success wherever her path may lead,” said NCC President Mike Brown.

During her tenure leading the Food Safety and Inspection Service, the agency declared the “big six” non-E.coli strains adulterants for certain beef products, instituting “test and hold,” tightened up Salmonella performance standards, and created the first such standards for Campylobacter.

Hagen also championed the HACCP-based Inspection Models Project (HIMP), which began as a pilot program in 1998. USDA is currently working to expand this program, which gives poultry plants more control over their own approaches to guaranteeing food safety and turn over quality assurance tasks to company employees.  This change would reduce the number of inspectors needed in plants. FSIS has said the program would save taxpayers about $90 million over three years and prevent thousands of foodborne illnesses annually — as well as saving the industry $250 million annually.

HIMP has already been adopted in as many as 19 slaughter plants nationwide. USDA’s final rule for expanding the program has been in the works for some time and is reportedly close to being released. The final rule is expected to include an updated analysis of the plants that already use HIMP.

“This is about public health,” Hagen said in an interview with Politico in September. “When we look at the data, it’s pretty clear that consumers protections are increased and not decreased. It’s completely the opposite of the story that some people are pushing. We absolutely, vehemently disagree that this would increase food-safety risks for anyone,” she said. “In fact, it would do the opposite.”

Both food safety groups and the inspectors’ union continue to fight HIMP’s expansion, tying the faster line speeds to worker injuries and the reduced number of inspectors to greater public health risks.

“Thanks to Elisabeth Hagen’s hard work and sound leadership of the thousands of employees at the Food Safety and Inspection Service, America’s food supply is safer today than ever before.  FSIS has taken a wide range of new and innovative steps to protect consumers — from adopting a new zero-tolerance policy for additional strains of E. coli in beef, to adopting new standards to protect Americans from Salmonella and Campylobacter in poultry, and much more. I’m proud of our record under the Obama Administration to ensure a safe food supply for Americans, and Under Secretary Hagen has played a key role in those efforts. I wish her all the best in her future endeavors,” said Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack.