Title 21, Food and DrugsRelease 119-102
§608 Sanitary Inspection and Regulation of Slaughtering and Packing Establishments; Rejection of Adulterated Meat or Meat Food Products
Title 21 › CHAPTER 12 — MEAT INSPECTION › SUBCHAPTER I — INSPECTION REQUIREMENTS; ADULTERATION AND MISBRANDING › § 608
Summary
The Secretary must hire sanitation experts to inspect slaughterhouses and other meat‑processing plants that handle animals covered by the law. He must set cleanliness rules, and if the meat is found adulterated he must block any official inspection approval label.
Full Legal Text
Title 21, §608
Food and Drugs, Source: USLM XML via OLRC
The Secretary shall cause to be made, by experts in sanitation or by other competent inspectors, such inspection of all slaughtering, meat canning, salting, packing, rendering, or similar establishments in which amenable species are slaughtered and the meat and meat food products thereof are prepared for commerce as may be necessary to inform himself concerning the sanitary conditions of the same, and to prescribe the rules and regulations of sanitation under which such establishments shall be maintained; and where the sanitary conditions of any such establishment are such that the meat or meat food products are rendered adulterated, he shall refuse to allow said meat or meat food products to be labeled, marked, stamped or tagged as “inspected and passed.”
Legislative History
Notes & Related Subsidiaries
Editorial Notes
Codification Section was formerly classified to section 76 of this title.
Amendments
2005—Pub. L. 109–97 substituted “amenable species” for “cattle, sheep, swine, goats, horses, mules, and other equines”. 1967—Pub. L. 90–201, §§ 3, 12(a), (f), struck out “interstate or foreign” before “commerce” and “of Agriculture” after “Secretary”, included horses, mules, and other equines in the list of animals, and substituted “adulterated” for “unclean, unsound, unhealthful, unwholesome, or otherwise unfit for human food”, respectively.
Statutory Notes and Related Subsidiaries
Effective Date
of 2005 AmendmentAmendment by Pub. L. 109–97 effective the day after 120 days after Nov. 10, 2005, see section 798(b) of Pub. L. 109–97, set out as a note under section 601 of this title.
Effective Date
of 1967 AmendmentAmendment by Pub. L. 90–201 effective Dec. 15, 1967, except that with respect to equines (other than horses) and their carcasses and parts thereof, meat, and meat food products thereof, amendment effective upon expiration of sixty days after Dec. 15, 1967, see section 20(b) of Pub. L. 90–201, set out as an
Effective Date
note under section 601 of this title.
Reference
Citations & Metadata
Citation
21 U.S.C. § 608
Title 21, Food and Drugs
Last Updated
Aug 21, 2026
Release point: 119-102