LOS ANGELES — A lawmaker called Tuesday for the Department of Agriculture to be stripped of its responsibility for food safety in the wake of the nation’s largest-ever meat recall.
The agency’s mandates of promoting agriculture and monitoring it for safety have become blurred, said Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro.
“Food safety ought to be of a high enough priority in this nation that we have a single agency that deals with it and not an agency that is responsible for promoting a product, selling a product and then as an afterthought dealing with how our food supply is safe,” said DeLauro, a Connecticut Democrat who is chairwoman of a subcommittee responsible for the USDA’s funding.
She made her remarks during a conference call with reporters about the recall of about 143 million pounds of beef products dating to Feb. 1, 2006, from Chino-based Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. USDA officials announced the recall Sunday after the Humane Society of the United States released undercover video showing crippled and sick animals at the slaughterhouse being shoved with forklifts.
