So, a single cow in a herd in Washington state that could not stand or walk properly is making headlines and causing countries around the world to slam their doors shut to American beef exports. The U.S. government is rushing to reassure us that it's not a big deal and that the American food supply is safe. Besides, they told us initially, the cow never made it into the food production chain, anyway. (Oh, whoops, folks, yes it did!)
People who love their meat will shrug this one off. Aren't animal-rights activists and vegetarians always going on about this kind of thing? And the chances of any one person getting mad cow disease are pretty darn low. "You can't worry all the time about the things that might kill you — that's no way to live!" they might tell you. And that's true.
But what if there's more than one cow infected? And what about other food-borne illnesses? What if there were proven ways to reduce the incidence of illness from what you eat — and we were collectively choosing to ignore them?
Consider these facts:
Food-borne illness kills 5,000 people and sickens 76,000,000 others in a year in the United States.
A recent FDA report on firms involved in meat processing around the country found that:
431 (16%) had products that were not labeled as required222 (8%) did not have adequate systems to prevent co-mingling
112 (4%) did not adequately follow record keeping regulations
591 (22%) firms were found to be out of compliance (some firms were out of compliance with more than one aspect of the rule.)
www.fda.gov/cvm/index/ updates/bse72001.htm
There's a number of agencies that are supposed to catch problems in food production, but it's not always clear who is responsible for what, and they often have no powers of enforcement anyway.
www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/ shows/meat/safe/recalls.htmloutbreak_report.pdf" "In December 2001, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision that some believe dealt a serious blow to the food safety reforms instituted by the USDA in the wake of the 1993 West Coast E. coli outbreak. The appeals court upheld a lower court ruling that the Agriculture Department does not have the authority to shut down a meat-processing plant that repeatedly failed tests for salmonella contamination. "In 1998, the government unveiled a radically redesigned system of meat inspection called Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point Systems (HACCP). Rather than relying on USDA inspectors to ensure that meat and poultry coming out of the plants was safe to eat, the new system required meat-processing plants to develop and implement their own systems of controlling the levels of harmful bacteria in their plants..." www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/ frontline/shows/meat/evaluating/supremebeef.html There's also a lot of pressure on government meat inspectors to close their eyes to the problems they see: "See, they wanted to take the focus off of the real problems, and those were the unsanitary conditions of those establishments, and then put the problem on my conduct. They were saying, "Her conduct, she can't get along with anybody, she's abusive, abrasive." [They said I was] calling them "f-ing liars," I'm "out of control," compliance has to ask me to leave the plant because I'm so, you know, all these things." www.pbs.org/wgbh/ pages/frontline/shows/meat/interviews/mckee.html I was in England during the mad cow disease scare, nearly a decade and a half ago. We've known for a long time how this disease can get into the food supply and transmitted to humans. We know about "super bugs" from antibiotics overused on cattle (which don't prevent BSE, anyway). We know that if fecal matter gets into the food supply, it makes people sick. We know it's not a good idea to overcrowd animals, to pump them with hormones and feed them crap they were never intended to consume. In fact, we didn't use to do things this way. This is a relatively recent development, and as such, it requires careful monitoring or things go horribly wrong. It is possible to get this right. Some small farms produce delicious, high-quality meat that won't make you sick. Nobody likes to eat feces, even if they have been irradiated. We could combine all the regulatory agencies into one and give the new agency some real teeth. It would be more efficient (and don't all those "small government" folks love efficiency?) and it would save lives. Remember that sick people don't feel well enough to go shopping and pump money into the economy, and dead people don't shop at all. I know people will continue to ignore this issue and/or laugh it off. That's OK... with the less responsible members of the meat industry. Hopefully all the media hoopla over that one wobbly cow in Washington will change their thinking, as customers start voting with their wallets.
"I saw the dead roaches and insects. I saw direct product contamination. I saw moldy product. I saw just filth in their coolers. I saw the refrigeration units leaking, the condensation. The freezer had actually about a three-foot mound of ice buildup from the floor up."
