The meat industry, faced with its second largest recall for contamination, should clean up its act and embrace reforms that will make meat less hazardous to your health.

Some call it the "hamburger disease," and it struck again this month. ConAgra Foods had to recall 19-million pounds of ground beef contaminated by E. coli bacteria after 19 people became ill. It was the second largest such recall in the nation's history and threatens to add the meat industry to the list of institutions Americans can no longer trust.

It wasn't the first time the aptly named ConAgra has gotten into trouble. In the past year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has warned the company several times about health violations, according to the New York Times. One of its turkey-processing plants had the highest rate of salmonella (half of the birds were contaminated), and the plant where the recalled hamburger was processed has been cited 10 times in the past three years for safety violations. The most disturbing news is that ConAgra is considered one of the industry leaders in food safety.

The USDA's meat inspection program has long been criticized for its ineffectiveness. Under new rules, the program has only grown more futile, according to a draft report by the General Accounting Office that was obtained by the New York Times. Although USDA inspectors check meat for contamination, they are slow to act when they find violations. Even after a plant fails two food-safety tests, the department waits an average of three months before doing an in-depth study of the problem.

The GAO found that the USDA threatened to suspend inspections at 60 plants where contaminated meat was found, which would have stopped the plants from operating. But the department never acted on its threat in 95 percent of those cases, removing "the incentive for the plants to take prompt corrective and preventive actions."

The problem, according Carol Tucker Foreman, director of the Food Policy Institute at the Consumer Federation of America, is that the USDA has a built-in conflict of interest. "The tradition at USDA is you do everything possible to avoid closing a plant because the USDA's mandate from Congress is to promote consumption and production of agricultural projects," she told the Times.

Meanwhile, the government has come up with rules for handling hamburger meat that make it appear to be a toxic substance, and in a way it is. To be safe, the meat must be thoroughly cooked to a temperature of 160-degrees and kept away from other foods, and those handling the meat must wash their hands before touching anything else. Although irradiation promises to make raw hamburger a safer product, the process is still controversial and not widely used.

It would be better for Congress to force the meat industry to clean up its act, and its product. And it would be better for the meat industry to stop fighting such reforms if it wants to retain any credibility.

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