> For the other regulatory practices mentioned in the article, especially washing chicken carcasses, I'd like to see more detailed evidence of the safety trade-offs involved in the practices of the United States and of Europe.

There was the relatively recent story in Forbes[1] (HN comments at [2]) about the difference in US/UK treatment of eggs, where the UK standard is to leave them unwashed to protect a natural anti-microbial coating, and the US policy is to wash and artificially disinfect them (at the cost of removing the original coating)

There are some similarities there, and I'm curious about whether the additional cleansing steps are necessary, or part of a process optimisation that allows for more variation in the cleanliness of incoming birds (ie: permitting a faster/messier slaughter or whatever)

The alternative, that it's something like the ammonia used to kill dangerous pathogens in 'recovered meat', is (IMO) more of a concern.

Purely speculation on my part though.

[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/nadiaarumugam/2012/10/25/why-ame...

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5325540