Artikel av två forskare från Worldwatch Insitute/ The Endless Meat Recall With attention focused on the Middle East, it would be easy
to miss another matter of national security festering at home last week.
The culprit in this case was not a terrorist sleeper cell, a biowarfare
agent, or even a serial killer. Instead, it was ground beef tainted with
lethal E. coli bacteria. Nearly sixty people in several Midwestern states
fell prey to this potential killer, prompting the recall of 2.8 million
pounds of meat. This
wasn't even the worst episode in what Americans might remember as the
summer of endless meat recalls. In July, the Department of Agriculture
issued the second biggest meat recall in U.S. history-19 million pounds
of beef trim, frozen hamburgers, fresh ground round, and other assorted
beef products by ConAgra, one of the country's biggest meatpackers. The
U.S. Department of Agriculture announces such recalls almost every other
day, with little or no on-going national media coverage. As of October
8, USDA had announced over 100 recalls. Ten of these recalls involved
at least 100,000 pounds of meat each (of which ConAgra was responsible
for two). Even
without the newly emerged threat of contamination by terrorists, most
meat produced in this country is the result of a dirty and destructive
production chain constantly flirting with disaster. (Is Attorney General
Ashcroft going to throw the chairman of ConAgra into jail without access
to an attorney for endangering the lives of millions of Americans?) These
frequent recalls offer compelling evidence that the scale of industrial
meatpacking, coupled with the inadequacy of federal inspections, makes
contamination almost inevitable. In
whatever configuration Congress establishes an office of homeland security,
the Bush administration would do well to force the meat industry to finally
clean up its act, not just as a defense against terrorists, but as a way
of bolstering public health. The
boss of homeland security will not relish the task of taking on the meatpacking
industry and its storied political clout. According to the Center for
Responsive Politics, the meat biz made over $4 million in political contributions
in the last decade. The meatpacking monopolies (four firms process upwards
of 80 percent of the beef in this country) have successfully convinced
antitrust authorities to ignore the industry's rapid consolidation, while
simultaneously selling Congress and federal food regulators on the idea
that industry is best policed by itself.
Industry
and university scientists hail the "efficiency" of treating
animals as industrial production units reared flank to flank in unhygienic,
ecologically destructive, and inhumane conditions. Industry's lobbyists
have also succeeded in getting the Congress and the U.S. Department of
Labor to turn a blind eye to the dangerous working conditions in slaughterhouses,
which have one of the highest rates of severe occupational injuries.
The
presence of lethal bacteria on our food is not inevitable. The surging
markets in organic meat and dairy products demonstrate that there is another
way. Farmers can raise and slaughter animals in clean and humane conditions
that greatly reduce the risk of foodborne illness. Meat
industry representatives would like to place the blame on careless consumers,
who fail to thoroughly cook their meat or wash their cutting boards. But
contamination begins long before consumers even go to the grocery store.
And efforts to keep lethal bacteria out of the meat supply must begin
on the farm and at the slaughterhouse. Brian
Halweil Brian Halweil and Danielle Nierenberg are researchers at the Worldwatch Institute in Washington DC (www.worldwatch.org). They both focus on the social and ecological effects of how we produce food. |