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Last Updated: Jun 30, 2008 - 11:14:37 AM |
School districts in 50 states have put a hold
on meat from a Chino based slaughterhouse after workers were videotaped
tormenting crippled cows www.hsus.org
to circumvent USDA rules that say cows must walk from one pen to the
next and back to prove they are not too sick to slaughter.
Non-ambulatory cows are known to harbor mad cow disease.
Workers at Hallmark/Westland Meat Company, a beef supplier to USDA,
shocked animals with electric prods, "water boarded" them, jabbed their
eyes with herding paddles and rammed them with forklift blades while
they squealed in pain in a videotape shot by Humane Society of the
United States undercover investigators.
But now Dr. Ken Peterson, assistant administrator of USDA's Food
Inspection Service which enforces the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act
says the "downers" may not have entered the food supply.
Maybe workers were routing them to go to dinner and a movie.
Whether schools will disinter the suspicious meat and actually serve it remains to be seen.
For the new Agriculture Secretary, Ed Schafer, the Hallmark/Westland Meat Company recall has been the perfect storm.
Even when people see videos of godforsaken farm animals, most believe
their food comes from somewhere else. But the meat from
Hallmark/Westland unequivocally went to schools in every state in the
nation and was eaten by many children thanks to the National School
Lunch Program.
Not only is it in the primary food supply, Schafer can't blame the
videotaped conditions on iffy overseas regulation. It "occurred under
the noses of eight on-site USDA inspectors," says the Los Angeles Times.
And, according to one activist it was a cakewalk.
"It would take two or three of us to get the cow to stand in front of
the inspector, on wobbly legs, and he would say 'That's fine,' " says
the activist who videotaped the slaughterhouse conditions during his
six week presence at the plant.
And there's more.
Hallmark/Westland was cited for excessive electric prodding of animals
in 2005 and e Coli risks in 2002, USDA officials admitted under
questioning by reporters.
And Farm Sanctuary, a separate animal welfare group, says it videotaped
Hallmark/Westland using forklifts to move animals a full fifteen years
earlier.
The meat recall is bad press on both health and humane grounds.
The 27 million pounds of meat Hallmark/Westland distributed to USDA
programs exceeds the 21.7 million pounds of e Coli contaminated meat
New Jersey based Topps Meat Company distributed before it went out of
business in 2007.
But unlike people who ate Topps meat, people who ate Hallmark/Westland
meat are still in danger because of mad cow's long incubation period.
E coli can shut down a meat company but mad cow disease can wipe out
the entire cattle industry within a matter of weeks. That's why when
someone in the US comes down with what could be mad cow disease, health
officials are quick to call the condition "spontaneous" or "hereditary"
to forestall panic.
A spokesman for the Wesley Medical Center in Wichita where a
53-year-old Kansas man died of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) in
January said his doctor said it was "not the mad cow version, reports
Reuters--prior to lab tests that could confirm his diagnosis. And even
though the unnamed man had worked in a slaughterhouse and hunted elk.
Health officials also call recent Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease clusters in Idaho and Indiana a coincidence.
Then there are the humane questions that dwell in a system that makes a
sick or dying animal get up and walk to slaughter so no one loses forty
dollars on its carcass.
Who is that hungry?
With his predecessor Mike Johanns running for the Senate in Nebraska
and ex Secretary Ann Veneman safely at UNICEF, Schafer, former North
Dakota Governor, no doubt resents the mess he's inherited and has
resorted to swiftboating.
"The Humane Society, since late October, has been willing to let
animals suffer out there," rather than notify USDA he said in front of
a cattle group in Reno last week, ignoring the fact that eight
inspectors were on-site.
But the Los Angeles Times isn't buying it.
"The U.S. Department of Agriculture has 7,800 pairs of eyes
scrutinizing 6,200 slaughterhouses and food processors across the
nation. But in the end, it took an undercover operation by an animal
rights group to reveal that beef from ill and abused cattle had entered
the human food supply," it wrote.
It used to be said if slaughterhouses had glass walls, we'd all be vegetarians.
After the Hallmark/Westland expose "and some would be in jail" might be a corollary.
Martha Rosenberg's work has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, L.A.
Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Boston Globe, Providence Journal.
Arizona Republic, New Orleans Times-Picayune and other newspapers.
© 2004-2008 by foodconsumer.org unless otherwise specified
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