Big Beef Recall

[Immanuel]

Biggest beef recall ever in U.S. - 143 million pounds. Recall targets a slaughter house that supplies the national school lunch program and fast food restaurants. Anyone want a hamburger? Source.

[Richard Myers]

The products subject to this recall were sent to wholesale distributors nationwide in bulk packages and are not available for direct purchase by consumers. All products subject to recall bear the establishment number “EST. 336” inside the USDA mark of inspection. The products were produced on various dates from Feb. 1, 2006 to Feb. 2, 2008. Companies are urged to check their inventories and hold the products until the recalling firm makes arrangements for final disposition of the products.

[Richard Myers]

Statement by Secretary of Agriculture Ed Schafer Regarding Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Company Two Year Product Recall
     February 17, 2008
     


....Upon notification of possible violations of USDA regulations, we immediately began an investigation and placed products from this plant destined for the National School Lunch Program, the Emergency Food Assistance Program and the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations on hold. Since then, we also suspended all Federal food and nutrition program contracts with Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Company. To date, Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Company remains suspended by the Food Safety and Inspection Service. The products destined for the Federal food assistance programs, including the National School Lunch Program, will now be removed from schools and other holding facilities and destroyed.

[Suzanne]

SLAUGHTERHOUSE INVESTIGATION: MEAT ROULETTE

Prompted by an undercover film from the Humane Society of the United States that shows workers kicking and shocking downer cows--cattle too sick to walk to their own slaughter--the Chino, California-based Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Co. recalled 143 million pounds of raw and frozen beef. Stunningly, the government still lacks the legal authority to require food recalls--it can only recommend them.

Coming on the heels of 21 beef recalls in 2007, this latest meat fiasco was followed by predictable and inadequate responses by apologists and critics alike. U.S. Department of Agriculture officials--who disturbingly, are charged with both promoting and monitoring our food supply--issued the standard "don't worry, eat happy" line even as they urged a recall. This signaled that our perilous game of meat roulette--a $70-billion-a-year business with phenomenal clout--would go largely unchallenged.

Indeed, while some in Congress are calling for a fuller investiation into regulatory lapses, the inadequacies of the inspection system have largely gone unchallenged. The U.S. food safety crisis is in full swing: According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 76 million people get sick from food poisoning, etc. each year, of whom 325,000 are hospitalized and more than 5,000 die. Soaring rates of salmonella, E. coli and other bacterial contamination continue to rise. Meat contamination has proliferated over the past 30 years along with the rise of industrialized feedlots and lightning-fast processing plants run by ever-fewer, ever-larger corporations. (Nor are veggies exempt from danger--recalling the 2007 spinach recall. )

In affidavits, meat inspectors who cite problems have frequently reported being harassed and intimidated into silence by meat industry managers, and routinely relagated to evaluating company paperwork rather than monitoring the line.

Ultimately, what needs fixing goes far beyond recalling 143 million pounds of meat. We need to greatly expand the number and the role of food-safety inspectors; erect a stronger fire-wall between inspection and promotion, so the agency that sets line speeds and promotes productivity is not also charged with evaluating food safety; give the government full authority to require meat recalls and to identify where tainted meat has been shipped and sold; and slow the production line to enable more accurate inspection and greater care in handling the meat, which would also reduce the high worker injury rates. Then, too, the extreme consolidation into a few corporate hands must be checked, to break the meat industry's strangle-hold on regulatory policy.

It's time to put the health and well-being of America's consumers, animals and food industry workers ahead of meat corporations' desire for maximum profits and control. --excerpts from an article in the Los Angeles Times, Feb. 25, 2008, by Christopher D. Cook.

Suzanne

[Suzanne]

Blogs from our Sunday newspaper:

"The unprecedented recall of 143 million pounds of beef has many people rethinking their food choices--and rightfully so.  A recall of this magnituide shows that the government cannot guarantee the safety of the food supply or ensure that animals in slaughterhouses aren't abused. ...Of course, the saturated fat and cholesterol found in beef is an even (greater) threat to human health.  Animals products have been conclusively linked to heart attacks, strokes, diabetes and certain types of cancer.  --Heather Moore

"Eating habits are not matters of personal choice anymore.  Most environmenalists, not to mention nutritionists and even economists, are increasingly in agreement that partaking of the cheap food produced by the industrialized food chain is akin to, if not worse than, driving a gas-guzzling sport uitility vehicle.

"The recent recall of 143 million pounds of beef (shows that) our way of procuring food is not merely unsustainable; it's also unspeakably cruel and ultimately bad for our health."  --Gerry Mak
--Riverside, Calif. Press-Enterprise, March 9, 2008.

Suzanne

[Suzanne]

This is a letter to the editor of our newspaper:

"I'm quite annoyed with the public and media astonishment over Hallmark Meat Packing's egregious practices ("criminal investigators look at slaughterhouse, Feb. 9).  The news media are saying the video is quite disturbing to watch, and people are writing letters to the editor about how horribly these poor creatures are being treated.

Do these folk go to the grocery store and buy nicely wrapped packages of beef?  Do they think those chunks of flesh were formed in test tubes absent any involvement by living creatures?  Wake up! If you purchase meat, you enable this type of cruelty. Whether an animal is pathetically sick and dragged by its leg to its death or perfectly healthy, it experiences horror and pain when slalughtered. 

We know when our pets are scared.  Do these people think it is any different for cows, chickens or turkeys?  --Adapted: Riverside, Calif. Press-Enterprise, Feb. 14, 2008.

Suzanne

[Mimi]

Diseased Meats.
     470. The meat diet is a serious question. Shall human beings live on the flesh of dead animals? The answer, from the light that God has given, is, No, decidedly no. Our health institutions should educate on this question. . . . They should point out the increase of disease in the animal kingdom. The testimony of examiners is that very few animals are free from disease.--U. T., Jan. 11, 1897.  {HL 102.5}

     471. Disease of every type is afflicting the human family, and it is largely the result of subsisting on the diseased flesh of dead animals.--U. T., March, 1896. {HL 102.6}

     472. Those who subsist largely upon flesh cannot avoid eating the meat of animals which are to a greater or less degree diseased. The process of fitting the animals for market produces in them disease; and fitted in as healthful a manner as they can be, they become heated and diseased by driving before they reach the market. The fluids and flesh of these diseased animals are received directly into the blood, and pass into the circulation of the human body, becoming fluids and flesh of the same. Thus humors are introduced into the system. And if the person already has impure blood, it is greatly aggravated by eating of the flesh of these animals.--T., V. II, p. 64.  {HL 103.1}

     473. The very animals whose flesh you eat are frequently so diseased that, if left alone, they would die of themselves; but while the breath of life is in them, they are killed and brought to market. You take directly into your system humors and poisons of the worst kind, and yet you realize it not.--T., V. II, p. 405.  {HL 103.2}

     474. There are but few animals that are free from disease. Many have been made to suffer greatly for the want of light, pure air, and wholesome food. When they are fattened, they are often confined in close stables, and are not permitted to exercise, and to enjoy free circulation of air. Many poor animals are left to breathe the poison of filth which is left in barns and stables. Their lungs will not long remain healthy while inhaling such impurities. Disease is conveyed to the liver, and the entire system of the animal is diseased. They are killed, and prepared for the market, and people eat freely of this poisonous animal food. Much disease is caused in this manner. But the people cannot be made to believe that it is the meat they have eaten which has poisoned their blood, and caused their sufferings. Many die of disease caused wholly by meat eating, yet the world does not seem to be the wiser. . . . It may be doing its work surely upon the system, and yet the person for the time being realize nothing of it.--H. to L., Chap. 1, p. 59.  {HL 103.3}

     475. Animals are frequently killed that have been driven quite a distance to the slaughter. Their blood has become heated. They are of full flesh, and have been deprived of healthy exercise, and when they have to travel far, they become exhausted, and in that condition are killed for market. Their blood is highly inflamed, and those who eat of their meat, eat poison. Some are not immediately affected, while others are attacked with severe pain, and die from fever, cholera, or some unknown disease. . . . Some animals that are brought to the slaughter seem to realize what is to take place, and they become furious, and literally mad. They are killed while in this state, and their flesh is prepared for market. Their meat is poison, and has produced, in those who have eaten it, cramps, convulsions, apoplexy, and sudden death.--H. to L., Chap. 1, pp. 59, 60.  {HL 104.1}



And people continuing to consume meats wonder why they get sick.

[Brian M]

Another beef recall 530,000lbs

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/03/us/03recallcnd.html?ref=us

[Richard Myers]

The company, Nebraska Beef Ltd. of Omaha, recalled the beef produced since May after some of its products, sold by the Kroger Company with sell-by dates of May 21 to July 5, was linked to reports of illnesses in Ohio and Michigan, the Agriculture Department’s Food Safety and Inspection Service said on Tuesday.

In addition to Michigan, Nebraska Beef reported some of the contaminated products were distributed in Illinois, New York and Pennsylvania. Other beef products were reportedly sent to Colorado and Texas for further processing, although it was not immediately clear whether any contaminated beef was sold in the other states.

E. Coli is deadly to the young and the old. Children have eaten a portion of a hamburger and died.

[Suzanne]

Plant Made Practice of Buying Sick Cattle

The Chino slaughterhouse that triggeted the natiohn's largest ever beef recall regularly bought sick, crippled and emaciated cows and forced them to their feet so they could be slaughtered for food, said a former employee who worked 23 years at Westland/Hallmark Meat Co.

Daniel Ugarte Navarro, a pen worker who awaits sentencing on animal cruelty convictions, agreed to an interview more than 6 months after a Humane Society investigator's undercover tapes showed collapsed cows dragged, repeatedly shocked, rammed with forklifts and illegally taken to slaughter at the plant.

Ugarte, 49, said the candid footage seen worldwide on TV and the Internet depicted business as usual at Westland/Hallmark, which was a key beef supplier for the national school lunch program.  Ugarte said that plant President Steve Mendell knew about and condoned the abuse and slaughter of "downer" cows and that lower-level supervisors ordered workers to carry it out.  

Ugarte noted that Westland/Hallmark regularly purchased sickly cattle from auctions aroung the region because those cows were cheaper. "They came crippled, very disabled.  They couldn't even stand."  He said the Chino plant was buying sick and injured cows for as long as he worked there, including when it was owned by the former owners....  --Riverside, Calif. Press-Enterprise, Sept. 13. 2008.

Suzanne

[Richard Myers]

Let the truth be proclaimed from the "housetops"!   Is our food supply safe?