A labor advocacy group says the U.S. Department of Agriculture relied on flawed data that downplayed the risk to workers in order to justify a proposal to remove all limits on line speeds at hog slaughtering plants, according to a report by the National Safety Council.

The National Employment Law Project said a review by two Texas State University researchers shows that the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service relied on limited data to conclude that a pilot project that allowed processing plants to run at higher speeds had lower mean injury rates. 

Drs. Celeste Monforton and Phillip Vaughan said in their report that the USDA used 2002-to-2010 injury data from only five pilot hog slaughter plants and 24 traditional plants, which the department had alerted users was not representative and could not be used to draw general conclusions, according to the group.

The data used in the USDA’s analysis had consecutive years of data for only eight of the 24 pork-processing plants, the researchers said. “Moreover, none of the traditional plants had data available for the full nine-year period (2002 through 2010).” 

NELP said the USDA released the report in response to a Freedom of Information Act request submitted in February 2018. 

“In plain language, the USDA’s analysis is a joke. Had their students turned in that kind of analysis, these professors would have given them an F,” said Debbie Berkowitz of NELP, in a press release. “This is another example of the USDA using flimsy data to push through a proposal that will adversely affect food safety, worker safety and animal welfare.”