Trump is Right to Scrap Biden’s Chicken Rule
It is tempting to believe that every public health regulation, particularly those targeting food safety, springs forth from a well of pure reason and beneficence. Such is the case with the Biden administration’s now-withdrawn USDA rule aimed at reducing Salmonella infections in poultry. The proposal, at first glance, seems unimpeachable: fewer bacteria, fewer illnesses, fewer deaths. However, as with many well-intentioned efforts, its premises, when subjected to scrutiny, crumble. Far from safeguarding Americans, the proposed rule risked lulling them into a false sense of security, weakening a cultural norm that has been far more effective at preventing disease than any regulatory edict could hope to be.
It is a foundational principle of modern food handling that raw poultry is presumed hazardous. This presumption, so deeply embedded in American culinary practice, mirrors another safety rule of American life: treat every firearm as if it is loaded. The analogy is not accidental. Both precepts instill a healthy and constant vigilance that guards against catastrophic consequences. Just as treating every firearm as loaded prevents fatal accidents, treating every piece of raw chicken as contaminated has, over time, driven down foodborne illness through the everyday, repeated acts of individual caution.
The USDA itself, for decades, has promulgated precisely this guidance. Clean your hands after handling raw poultry. Disinfect every surface it touches. Cook it thoroughly to an internal temperature of 165 degrees Fahrenheit, ensuring any bacteria, whether present initially or not, is destroyed. These protocols are not advisory niceties. They are the bedrock of food safety in American homes and restaurants. They work not by assuming poultry is safe, but by assuming it is not, and rigorously acting on that assumption.
The Biden administration's proposed rule, however, threatened to upend this salutary state of affairs. By reducing the incidence of Salmonella, but not eliminating it, the rule would inevitably send a mixed message to the public. It is well known in risk communication that partial reassurances often breed dangerous complacency. The USDA’s proposed thresholds and strain-specific tests would not have eradicated Salmonella. They would merely have rendered it somewhat less frequent. Yet, human psychology being what it is, the practical effect would have been a perception of "safe chicken," a notion deadly in its consequences.
This was not a hypothetical concern. Even the USDA acknowledged that the new rule would not eradicate Salmonella from poultry products. Thus, under the new regime, some raw chicken would still carry harmful bacteria. The problem is that a public taught to regard chicken as presumptively safe would be less fastidious about hand washing, surface sanitation, and proper cooking. In short, the single most important line of defense against foodborne illness, consumer vigilance, would be weakened precisely when it remained urgently necessary.
History instructs us that the effectiveness of safety protocols often depends more on ingrained habits than on external guarantees. Consider the fate of early seatbelt campaigns, which succeeded not when cars became impervious to crashes, but when drivers and passengers made buckling up a reflexive act. Similarly, food safety depends on a habitual, almost ritualistic caution regarding raw animal products. Remove the perceived threat, and the habit atrophies.
Moreover, the proposed rule carried economic dangers not easily dismissed. Poultry producers, particularly smaller operations, would have faced crushing financial and logistical burdens complying with the new thresholds and mandatory pathogen testing. The inevitable result would have been higher prices at the grocery store, placing yet another regressive tax on working-class families already battered by inflation. Nor was it clear that these costs would have delivered proportional benefits. The USDA’s own risk assessment suggested that the projected reduction in illnesses, while significant in absolute numbers, represented a relatively small fraction of total Salmonella cases nationwide.
To these concerns must be added another, more philosophical one. The pursuit of a zero-risk food supply, though superficially noble, betrays a dangerous misunderstanding of human life. Risk can be mitigated but not abolished. There will always be some level of microbial presence in raw meat, just as there will always be some mechanical failure in machines, some error in human judgment. Wise policy recognizes this and builds a resilient culture of risk management, not a brittle fantasy of risk elimination.
President Trump’s USDA, in rolling back the Biden-era proposal, acted not out of indifference to public health but out of a sober recognition of these truths. They acknowledged the vital importance of preserving consumer caution, the economic harms of overregulation, and the futility of trying to legislate away all dangers. Their decision reflects a deeper, more principled vision of safety—one that empowers individuals rather than infantilizing them.
Critics have alleged that the rollback represents capitulation to industry interests. Pilgrim’s Pride, they note, was among the poultry giants lobbying against the rule. But to suggest that all opposition was corrupt is to ignore the many legitimate, public-spirited arguments against the rule, arguments echoed by consumer educators, small producers, and thoughtful policymakers. Indeed, the more one respects the American public, the more one ought to trust them to handle food safely, provided they are properly informed.
If there is a flaw in our current system, it is not that it relies too heavily on consumer responsibility, but that it sometimes fails to reinforce that responsibility vigorously enough. Rather than chasing illusory purity at the production stage, the USDA ought to invest more in public education: vivid campaigns reminding every cook, professional or amateur, that raw chicken must be treated with respect, that invisible dangers are real, and that proper handling remains the surest path to safety.
This is not merely an empirical claim. It rests on a fundamental commitment to the principle that adults, given clear information, can be trusted to manage risks rationally. It is a commitment in harmony with the broader conservative philosophy that champions personal responsibility over bureaucratic paternalism. By resisting the technocratic temptation to "fix" food safety from the top down, the Trump administration reaffirmed this trust—a trust sorely needed in an era when the state increasingly seeks to shelter citizens from the very realities that shape prudent action.
It would be uncharitable to deny that the Biden administration meant well. No doubt the architects of the Salmonella rule earnestly desired to make Americans healthier. But good intentions are not a substitute for good results, and in matters of public policy, especially public health, intentions without wisdom can kill. By teaching Americans to handle every raw chicken as if it were dangerous, we have built a powerful cultural bulwark against disease. By undermining that wisdom, the Biden rule would have left Americans more vulnerable, not less.
In the end, true safety lies not in bureaucratic decrees but in the habits of a vigilant citizenry. It is better to teach people to respect risk than to pretend it has been eliminated. It is better to cultivate wisdom than to indulge fantasy. And it is better, always, to trust the good sense of free men and women than to substitute for it the illusions of technocratic control.
If you don't already please follow @amuse on 𝕏.