Last week’s huge beef recall, prompted by secretly filmed slaughter practices at a California meatpacking plant, is a nauseating reminder of the rickety nature of our nation’s food inspection network.
Congress has set at least two hearings this week to explore various aspects of the issue, and we hope the situation spurs lawmakers to finally rework and shore up the nation’s ailing food safety system.
The efficacy of food regulation returned to the spotlight when Westland/Hallmark Meat Packing Co., one of the largest suppliers of the nation’s school lunch program, recalled more than 143 million pounds of meat produced by the plant.
A video made by an employee, who was also affiliated with the Humane Society of the U.S., showed workers using electrical shocks, forklifts and high-pressure water hoses to make sick or injured cattle walk to their slaughter.
Such “downer” cattle generally are banned from the food supply because they can be sources of mad-cow disease as well as other contamination.
If one guy with a video camera can run across such violations, you have to wonder what’s going on in slaughterhouses around the country.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which has jurisdiction over monitoring the plant, hasn’t been exactly reassuring in its response.
The risk associated with eating beef included in this largest recall in U.S. history is low, the agency said. Well, that’s good, since most of it already has been eaten — a lot of it by schoolchildren.
The agency also is investigating practices at the plant, but contends it has enough inspectors and a good system in place.
That’s hard to believe.
The number of USDA inspectors has decreased from 12,000 in 1978 to 7,600. The country has 6,200 meat plants, which makes for a lot of ground to cover — some might say an impossible amount.
Last year, after a recall of 21.7 million pounds of hamburger feared to be contaminated with E. coli, The Chicago Tribune published a story that documented how strained the meat inspection system had become.
Some USDA inspectors said their workloads had doubled or tripled as about 1,000 government inspector positions remained unfilled. They told the newspaper their duties had been reduced to cursory checks of company paperwork, not looking at meat.
Furthermore, the USDA has no mandatory recall authority, instead relying on companies to go forward with voluntary recalls. It also does not have the ability to levy civil fines against plant operators.
The conditions at the Westland/ Hallmark plant are troubling enough on their own, but in combination with other prominent food contamination scares in recent years, it’s even more worrisome.
We hope the situation prompts Congress to take action to reorganize and better fund food inspection programs. More inspectors would seem to be a good start. Ensuring a safe food supply should be one of the primary functions of government.
