Massachusetts § 127 - Prohibited acts relating to slaughter and transportation of livestock or poultry

§ 127. Prohibited acts relating to slaughter and transportation of livestock or poultry

Section 127. (a) No person shall, with respect to any livestock or poultry or any livestock products or poultry products:

(1) slaughter any such animals or prepare any such articles which are capable of use as human food at any official establishment, except in compliance with the requirements of this chapter and any regulations thereunder promulgated;

(2) sell, transport, offer for sale or transportation, or receive for transportation, in intrastate commerce, any such articles which are capable of use as human food, and are adulterated or misbranded at the time of such sale, transportation, offer for sale or transportation, or receipt for transportation; or any such articles required to be inspected under this chapter unless they have been so inspected and passed;

(3) do, with respect to any such articles which are capable of use as human food, any act while they are being transported in intrastate commerce or held for sale after such transportation, which is intended to cause or has the effect of causing such articles to be adulterated or misbranded.

(b) No person shall buy, sell, transport, offer for sale or transportation, or receive for transportation:

(1) any slaughtered poultry from which the blood, feathers, feet, head, or viscera have not been removed in accordance with regulations promulgated by the department except as may be authorized by such regulations;

(2) any carcasses of horses, mules, or other equines or parts of such carcasses, or the meat or meat food products thereof, unless they are plainly and conspicuously marked or labeled or otherwise identified as required by regulations prescribed by the department to show the kinds of animals from which they were derived;

(3) any livestock products or poultry products which are not intended for use as human food unless they are denatured or otherwise identified as required by the regulations of the department or are naturally inedible by humans.

(c) No person engaged in the business of buying, selling, or transporting in intrastate commerce, dead, dying, disabled, or diseased animals, or any parts of the carcasses of any animals that died otherwise than by slaughter, shall buy, sell, transport, offer for sale or transportation, or receive for transportation, in such commerce, any dead, dying, disabled, or diseased livestock or poultry or the products of any such animals that died otherwise than by slaughter, unless such transaction or transportation is made in accordance with such regulations as the department shall prescribe to assure that such animals, or the unwholesome parts or products thereof, will be prevented from being used for human food purposes.

(d) No person shall:

(1) cast, print, lithograph, or otherwise make any device containing any official mark or simulation thereof, or any label bearing any such mark or simulation, or any form of official certificate or simulation thereof, except as authorized by the commissioner;

(2) forge any official device, mark, or certificate;

(3) without authorization from the commissioner use any official device, mark, or certificate, or simulation thereof, or alter, detach, deface, or destroy any official device, mark, or certificate;

(4) contrary to the regulations prescribed by the department, fail to use, or to detach, deface, or destroy any official device, mark, or certificate;

(5) possess, without promptly notifying the commissioner or his representative, any official device or any counterfeit, simulated, forged, or improperly altered official certificate or any device or label or any carcass of any animal, including poultry, or part or product thereof, bearing any counterfeit, simulated, forged, or improperly altered official mark;

(6) represent that any article has been inspected and passed, or exempted, under this chapter when, in fact, it has, respectively, not been so inspected and passed, or exempted;

(7) knowingly make any false statement in any shipper's certificate or other nonofficial or official certificate provided for in the regulations prescribed by the department;

(8) fail to furnish the commissioner upon his request any record, report, answer, or information which may be required under the provisions of or under the authority of sections one hundred and eighteen to one hundred and thirty, inclusive, or knowingly make any omission or false statement in any such record, report, answer, or information.