USDA Says It’s None of the Public’s Business Who Ate Recalled Meat

[Joanne98]

At least 10,000 food distributors sold recalled meat from the shuttered Hallmark slaughterhouse in Chino, CA including ConAgra, General Foods, Nestle and H.J. Heinz and it could still be on store shelves.

But Richard Raymond, USDA undersecretary for food safety, told an incredulous House Appropriation’s agriculture panel this week the information is “proprietary” and would not be released.

Naming names could drive customers away and just “confuse” people say trade groups like the American Meat Institute, Food Marketing Institute and Grocery Manufacturers Association.

The Bush Administration also opposes publicizing retailers’ names in meat recalls.

But an appeal to protectionism was not what the panel wanted to hear.

“This is a very, very critically important issue,” said Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-New York) demanding a list of implicated distributors by next week. “If we have stores that are selling bad products, we should know about it.”

This is not the first time shield laws have protected industry profits at the price of public health during mad cow scares.

Shield laws protected the identities of Texas and Alabama ranches that produced mad cows in 2004 and 2006 and the identities of 11 restaurants in nine California counties that served meat from a confirmed mad cow in late 2003.

That’s why former state Sen. Jackie Speier backed a California law in 2006 which compelled distributors of recalled food products to disclose where those products went.

This week a 120 page list of over 400 restaurants and food services that bought Hallmark/Westland meat including Costco, Jack in the Box and Taco Bell appears on the California Department of Public Health web site. Officials say the list is growing.

The Department of Agriculture and Big Food did not have an easy time in the Senate last week either.

Even as Gary Rodkin, CEO of ConAgra Foods apologized for last year’s pot pie recall in a House Energy and Commerce Committee’s subcommittee hearing–”I personally will ensure that we will continuously challenge and improve our food safety programs, and make certain that food safety is the centerpiece of our corporate culture,”–the news broke that ConAgra was implicated in this year’s recall.

And in Senate Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee hearings last week, chairman Senator Herb Kohl (D-Wisconsin) wanted to know why, with five inspectors assigned to the Hallmark slaughterhouse, the videotaped abuse that led to the recall had to be uncovered by a charity.

“Why don’t you have a system that uncovers this inhumane treatment of animals?” Senator Kohl asked Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer who was making his first appearance on Capitol Hill since assuming the post days before the meat scandal broke.

In January, an undercover video showing the mistreatment of “downer” cows www.hsus.org shot at a Chino, CA slaughterhouse which supplied the National School Lunch Program led to the biggest meat recall in US history.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/03/08/7554/

It's time to become a vegetarian.

[Poll_Blind]

1. Holy fucking shit. I want to leave Richard Raymond in a room full of parents whose children...

...who eat school lunches and lock the door.

PB

[sasha031]

2. I am so glad I gave up meat over 20yrs ago

If people would try Boco burgers and other alternatives they might me in for a delightful surprise.

[Joanne98]

3. What are Boco burgers?

[sasha031]

5. soy burgers you can find in your local supermarket

in the frozen health food section, there is also Smart Bacon put out by Light Life which is delicious.
There are so many alternatives to eating meat, unfortunately it is a bit more expensive, it's
soy which could be a GM product.

Will we ever see a day when we have control over our own food chain again.

[Joanne98]

6. I going a big veggie garden this year..

maybe I'll just eat veggies and cheese all summer.

[cornermouse]

7. Think e coli and it's presence in several

types of veggies over the past few years. Veggies aren't safe either. And then there's all that "distributed by" without mention of location of producer or processor. Better crank up the tiller and start growing your own.

[kestrel91316]

9. The VERY RARE problem of toxic strains of E. coli in vegetables is NO

reason to stop buying them.

Wash your fruits and veggies properly, buy organic wherever possible, cook and handle properly, and eat without fear.

Support your local farmer's market.

[bronxiteforever]

4. Federal protection of the food supply is MIA. Make that the drug industry too.

If consumers don't have confidence in the safety of the market, they go elsewhere. Apparently free and unregulated markets of food means possible death to the consumer.Herbert Spencer Social Statistics in action again-the GOP is in love with the Robber Baron's of the 1880s.

[kestrel91316]

10. Once Bush is gone we can work on restoring USDA and FDA to their proper roles.

Believe you me, the employees of those agencies WANT to be able to do their jobs properly, and WANT to protect the public. But the rank and file is muzzled and told to sit down and shut up.

[kestrel91316]

8. There is only ONE appropriate response:

BOYCOTT AMERICAN BEEF.

[The Backlash Cometh]

11. Keep voting Republican, you GD asshats. You're going to get what you

deserve. An early grave due to something that slipped through the canyon, no longer a crack.

[H8fascistcons]

12. Fascism is on the march....

Never forget the criminal Fascist enablers Nancy Pelosi, Rahm Emanuel, Harry Reed, Jay Rockefeller, Steny Hoyer continue to allow these crimes against all Americans... Never Forget until these criminal Democrats are voted out of office.....

[alterfurz]

13. go vegetarian!

It's not only downers and generally lax inspection, but all the growth hormones animals are fed to get them to market faster (a likely factor in the obesity epidemic?)--not to mention the huge energy input required to produce animal protein compared to vegetable: it's estimated that switching to a vegetarian diet reduces global warming impact as much as not driving your car!

[formercia]

14. If these meat nazis think it safe

then they won't mind eating it every day in prison. Mad Cow Baloney sandwiches, yum.

[dixiegrrrrl]

16. Whatever happened to boycotts and consumer organizing?

The silence of the "average consumer" is deafening.

but then again, I an old enuff to remember when we were "customers", not "consumers".

and Mds were "doctors" not "prescribers" as a pharma ad on tv last nite called them.

Late 60's and early 70's were such an active time, and BS was called for what it was.

What's missing today?

[formercia]

17. Just wait until the sheeple finally wake up.

When they lose that dead-end service sector job and the repo man hauls away their wide-screen tv. When the babies are crying because there's not enough to eat and milk is $20 a gallon and going up fast.

It's coming soon and it's going to be ugly.

[Karenina]

20. What's missing? CITIZENS.

[libbygurl]

15. There are alternatives to the usual food outlets if you can't/don't want to become a vegetarian -

- more expensive than the supermarkets, but this is your health we're talking about!

The whole problem with the food supply here in the US stems from the drive to make food cheaper by any means, and a big price is now being paid for that. The whole industrialisation (factory farming) of poultry, pork and beef farms has brought us cheap foods, but also rather unsafe and unhealthy ones, not to mention lots of cruel practices that are now standard in this industry, with little oversight or regulation by the emasculated USDA.

Try this, for one: heritagefoodsusa.com - for grass-fed, free-range beef and buffalo meat, free-range and organic turkey, pork products.

[Joanne98]

18. kick

[Joe Chi Minh]

19. How about lawyers who might want to represent them? Is that what

they're scared of?