Anyone watching the KQED special on the meat industry?

[RMSistight]

Very interesting show.

 

[atom]

LOL I'm watching it. Yuck.

 

[RMSistight]

Originally posted by: atom
LOL I'm watching it. Yuck.

I swear dude. America is filled with corporate greed and doesn't care about everyday living people. It's a good thing that the government is watching out backs.

 

[RMSistight]

WTF....the USDA can't issue a mandatory recall?

 

[TheBoyBlunder]

Originally posted by: RMSistight
WTF....the USDA can't issue a mandatory recall?

No they can't. Too many food companies giving money to politician's campaigns for that to happen.

 

[C'DaleRider]

Originally posted by: TheBoyBlunder

Originally posted by: RMSistight
WTF....the USDA can't issue a mandatory recall?

No they can't. Too many food companies giving money to politician's campaigns for that to happen.

Beef is a $70 billion business in this country, and the people who run it are no slouches. Their skill at working both public opinion and politicians would make the NRA proud. But the industry?s many critics say it often uses its clout to stifle detractors and thwart regulations aimed at making its products safer ? all in the interest of keeping the fat in its profits.

It?s a game they?ve been playing for decades. In 1906, Upton Sinclair?s groundbreaking book The Jungle exposed dangerously unsanitary conditions in meat-processing plants, sparking calls for increased federal inspections. The meatpackers took up arms against such proposals, complaining, in the words of one industry executive, ?There is no limit to the expense that might be put upon us.?

The meat business spends lavishly to support its political agenda. Since 1990, livestock and meat-processing interests have doled out almost $28 million to federal candidates, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks campaign contributions. The industry spends about another $2 million every year on lobbyists. ?They understand we have the best laws money can buy,? says Lyman. ?It?s much easier to buy a politician than to comply with regulations.?

Most of the industry?s largess goes to Republicans, but not all. Last July, a nearly successful bill to ban the sale of meat from ?downer? cows ? cattle too sick or injured to walk, and which are most likely to have BSE ? was shot down not only by Robert Goodlatte, the Republican House Agriculture Committee chairman, but also by the committee?s ranking Democrat, Representative Charles Stenholm. Both men have received tens of thousands of dollars from cattle interests in recent years.

Big beef has a special friend in President George W. Bush. After all, Bush is the former governor of Texas, the nation?s top cattle-producing state, and owns a ranch himself there. He was the keynote speaker at the NCBA?s annual meeting in 2002. He was also the number-one recipient of the industry?s campaign contributions in this and the last election cycle, pulling in nearly $1 million from livestock and meatpacking interests. Perhaps that helps explain why Bush solemnly told a mad cow?spooked public on New Year?s Day: ?I ate beef today, and will continue to eat beef.?

With the help of such allies, the industry has fought back numerous attempts to regulate their business. ?They don?t much like government,? says Dan Glickman, secretary of agriculture from 1995 to 2001. ?They don?t knowingly try to hurt public safety, but the industry is generally very suspicious of regulations.? It?s not something they?re ashamed of. The NCBA?s Web site proudly lists ?limited government? as one of the organization?s ?guiding principles.?

New York Democratic Representative Gary Ackerman, for instance, first introduced a bill banning the sale of meat from downer cows 10 years ago, only to see it defeated again and again amid intense industry lobbying. His most recent effort was quashed by just three votes in the House in July. ?We were happy to hear the Agriculture Department finally saw the light? ? with its December ban on downer meat ? ?though, of course, it?s only because they were struck by lightning,? says Jordan Globes, Ackerman?s? press secretary.

Many meat interests also bitterly fought efforts in the mid-1990s to halt the feeding of rendered cattle parts to cows ? a practice that caused the British outbreak of mad cow disease. The FDA finally implemented a less-than-complete ban in 1997.

Nor have meat producers? anti-regulation efforts been limited to those targeting BSE. While mad cows grab the headlines, American beefeaters are actually in far greater danger from more familiar pathogens. A 1996 USDA study found 7.5 percent of ground-beef samples were contaminated with salmonella; more than half contained other infectious agents. One of the most worrisome is E. coli 0157:H7, which, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, infects an estimated 73,000 people a year in the U.S. ? dozens of them fatally. In 1993, an outbreak of E. coli 0157:H7, spread by infected Jack in the Box hamburgers, sickened 700 people, most of them children, and killed four. Nonetheless, when the USDA announced later that year that it would begin microbial testing of ground beef to check for this particularly virulent pathogen, the American Meat Institute filed a federal lawsuit to prevent it from doing so.

The industry?s standard argument against such safeguards is that they are overly expensive and unnecessary, given the relatively low level of risk and the protections already in place. The NCBA, says Bryan Dierlam, the association?s director of legislative affairs, is all for public health, ?But we also want to make sure that government regulations are based on science,? he says. ?Often the debate isn?t over science but politics.?

?We?ve spent millions on research on how to reduce the prevalence of pathogens like E. coli and salmonella,? he adds. ?We didn?t do that because we were told to ? we did it because it was the right thing to do.?

Determining whether beef is in fact safe is largely the responsibility of the Agriculture Department. It?s an agency with considerable expertise in the business ? after all, many of its officials have worked in the meat industry. They include chief of staff Dale Moore, deputy undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programs Chuck Lambert, and the department?s two top press secretaries, all of whom formerly worked at the NCBA, as well as assistant secretary for congressional relations Mary Waters, a former official with meat giant ConAgra Foods.

To some, this arrangement might suggest an overly cozy relationship between a government agency and an industry it is supposed to oversee. To the American Meat Institute?s Murphy, it?s perfectly sensible.

?Who would you want running the Defense Department ? someone with an English-lit degree? You want someone who understands the industry and knows the issues,? he says. ?Believe me, we wish we had the kind of influence with them that people say we do. We?d love to go over there and rewrite the regulations and tell them what would work for us. Everyone in the meat industry would agree they?re struggling under all the regulation. The USDA is the ones who tell us what to do, not the other way around.?

Nonetheless, in some ways the department has strikingly little power over the meat industry compared to that of other government agencies. If it discovers a batch of potentially dangerous meat, the agency cannot order it recalled from supermarket shelves the way, say, toys judged to be choking hazards can be ordered recalled. The USDA can only ask the companies involved to voluntarily recall their tainted product. Most such meat never comes back. According to an analysis of USDA data by the Detroit Free Press, from 1998 through 2000 nearly 109 million pounds of meat and meat products were recalled in the United States, but only 24 percent of that meat was ever recovered.

Nor can the USDA even tell consumers which stores might have meat subject to recall sitting on their shelves. Such information is considered the meatpacking companies? proprietary business information. That secrecy can extend to an appalling degree. In 1999, IBP, a major meatpacking company, recalled 10,000 pounds of ground beef because it was shot through with bits of glass; but neither the company nor the USDA would tell the public which stores had received the extra-crunchy beef.

?The government can recall faulty electrical equipment but not contaminated meat,? complains Dan Glickman. During his tenure, the USDA asked Congress to grant it mandatory recall power but was refused, thanks to pressure from the meat industry, Glickman says.

Michele Peterson, a spokesperson for the NCBA, dismisses any suggestion that the industry might put profits above public safety. ?We are market-driven,? she says. ?If we don?t have a safe product to provide consumers, we don?t have a product at all. We are very committed to the end user.?

In the wake of the discovery of our own mad cow, consumer advocates are calling for a number of new safety measures in addition to those the USDA has already announced. The most obvious one: Test many more, if not all, cattle intended for human consumption for BSE. At present, USDA veterinarians test only downer cows that appear to have symptoms of the disease ? barely more than 20,000 out of some 35 million cattle slaughtered every year. In early January the agency announced it will seek to double that number, but that would still be far less than what other countries do. In Europe, one out of every four cows meant for human consumption is tested for BSE; in Japan, all cows are tested. Testing at European levels would of course cost money, but not a lot, relatively speaking. The Wall Street Journal recently calculated that such a move would boost the price of beef by only 6 to 10 cents a pound.

The response of many in the meat industry to the idea of widespread BSE testing, however, is a familiar one. ?We?re opposed,? says the American Meat Institute?s Murphy. ?The precautions we have are plenty. We don?t need to do more.?