USDA's food safety programis broken

What the U.S. Department of Agriculture doesn't know about the safety of the meat supply could hurt you. It took an expose by an animal rights organization to force the largest beef recall ever - 143-million pounds processed at a California slaughterhouse. When the USDA's clunky regulatory apparatus finally kicked into gear, most of the questionable meat had been consumed, much of it in school lunchrooms.

Federal officials and the meat industry are trying to assure the public that the beef in question poses no health risk. But the truth is, they don't know for sure. The USDA couldn't even identify all of the schools that purchased the meat. (In an abundance of caution, many schools in the Tampa Bay area have taken beef off their menus for now.)

Video obtained by the Humane Society of the United States showed workers at the Westland/Hallmark Meat Packing Co. in Chino, Calif., abusing cows unable to walk into the slaughterhouse. Not only is that animal cruelty but it's also a violation of federal regulations that require "downer" animals, as they are called, to be examined by a veterinarian to determine if they are disease-free before slaughter.

The video is difficult to watch. Dairy cows no longer useful for milk production are being kicked, rammed with a forklift, dragged by a leg over rough concrete and, in one case, having water forced down the animal's nose. The fact that the cows are immobile could indicate that they suffer from mad cow disease, which can be passed on to humans, or other ailments. And by dragging the cows through feces at the loading area, the carcasses are more likely to be tainted with E. coli bacteria.

This is just the latest proof that the federal food-safety bureaucracy is broken. USDA inspectors were supposedly monitoring slaughterhouse operations, yet they failed to identify or stop the use of downer cows. Considering that the meat from the Westland/Hallmark facility ends up in subsidized products for schools, needy families and the elderly, the neglect of duty by the company and the USDA is even more appalling.

While two Westland/Hallmark employees were fired and arrested after the video was made public, the problem is much broader. Members of Congress need to quit making speeches about food safety and actually do something. The USDA should have more inspectors, and they should be required to uphold safety standards. And any company that puts public health at risk through its negligent actions should be out of business.

[Last modified February 18, 2008, 20:36:49]