Largest Meat Recall in U.S. History
February 18th, 2008Which phrase is more bone chilling?
Downer cattle, or federal nutrition program?
Via: Reuters:
A California meatpacker accused of animal cruelty is making the largest U.S. meat recall on record — 143 million lbs, the U.S. Agriculture Department said on Sunday.
Most of the meat, raw and frozen beef products, probably has already been consumed, said USDA officials at a briefing. Some 37 million lbs were bought for school lunches and other federal nutrition programs. USDA said there was only a minor risk of illness from eating the beef.
Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Co voluntarily recalled all of its beef produced since February 1, 2006. USDA said Hallmark violated rules against the slaughter of “downer cattle” — that is, animals too ill to walk.
“This is the largest beef recall in the history of the United States, unfortunately,” said Agriculture Undersecretary Richard Raymond.
Based in Chino, California, Hallmark/Westland has been closed since early February. Company officials were not immediately available for comment.
The Humane Society of the United States showed videotapes on January 30 showing workers at the plant using several abusive techniques to make animals stand up and pass a pre-slaughter inspection. These included ramming cattle with forklift blades and using a hose to simulate the feeling of drowning.
“A recall of this staggering scale proves that it’s past time for Congress and the USDA to strengthen our laws for the sake of people and animals,” said HSUS president Wayne Pacelle.
Raymond said the recall stemmed from slaughter of cattle that could not stand at the time of slaughter, although they passed inspection earlier. Packers are required to alert USDA veterinarians in those cases so they can decide if the animal can be slaughtered for food.
The Humane Society of the United States showed videotapes on January 30 showing workers at the plant using several abusive techniques to make animals stand up and pass a pre-slaughter inspection. These included ramming cattle with forklift blades and using a hose to simulate the feeling of drowning.
What’s really scary about this news story is how it indicates the depth and severity of our cultural sickness. For pity’s sake, we’re practically waterboarding sick animals to that they can illegally pass inspection for slaughter in order to squeeze out a few cents per pound more profit!
I just saw a report about this on the local St.Louis evening news. What amazed me was the fact that they actually included a brief snip of Humane Society video that showed one of those poor cows being shoved around on the floor by a fork lift. It’s certainly not the sort of thing they typically show the sheeple on the evening whitewash. It reminded me of something that Amy Goodman said once about war and television (yes, I know she’s not all she’s cracked up to be). She basically said that if we were shown the actual damage caused by our military actions on the evening news, within 10 days there would be such civil unrest that the mil.gov would be forced to shut down it’s operations overseas. It’s an interesting thought. I think the same thing would be true of our industrial food system, particularily meat production. I’ve seen some of the videos put out by the Humane Society and PETA. They’re so sick and depressing that you’d have to be a pretty soulless motherfucker to see that sort of thing and not be moved to action. Can you imagine if the 10 o’clock news every night contained footage of the feedlots, slaughterhouses, and packing plants. I want to believe that this disgusting system would be shut down pretty fast. Of couse I’ve been almost yelled at for bring this subject up to friends and family, so maybe most folks would simply tune out and go get another cheeseburger. After all, everyone loves hotdogs, but nobody wants to see how they’re made…
– Mike Lorenz