USDA privatizing meat inspections with program that allowed ‘chunks’ of feces

[unhappycamper]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/09/09/usda-privatizing-meat-inspections-with-program-that-allowed-chunks-of-feces/



USDA privatizing meat inspections with program that allowed ‘chunks’ of feces
By David Edwards
Monday, September 9, 2013 14:10 EDT

The Department of Agriculture (USDA) is planning to roll out a meat inspection program nationwide that will allow pork plants to use their own inspectors, but it has a history of producing contaminated meat at American and foreign plants.

The Washington Post reported on Monday that documents and interviews showed that a plan to allow hog plants to replace federal USDA inspectors with their own private employees had produced “serious lapses that included failing to remove fecal matter from meat” in three of the five plants that had participated in a pilot program for more than a decade.

And plants using the same procedure in Australia and Canada also ran into problems. In one case, a Canadian company had to recall 8.8 million pounds of beef products for E. coli contamination.

Most recently, New Zealand had been given permission to export meat to the United States from plants using the inspection procedure. But government inspectors in New Zealand have already warned that the meat produced at those plants is contaminated at times.

[KansDem]

1. How appropriate...

‘chunks’ of feces

Symbolic of this Congress.

[crim son]

2. Ain't that the truth. n/t

[Jackpine Radical]

3. What's Congress got to do with it?

They take over the USDA from the Executive Branch without my hearing about it?

This particular lump of pig shit lies at the feet of the Administration.

[Cryptoad]

11. Civics 101

Congress is in charge of creating regulations..... White House enforces them.

[Jackpine Radical]

16. Civics 102

Congress passes a law that the USDA will implement a system for inspecting meat. USDA devises the system by which the law is carried out--including the decision of whether or not to privatize. Find anything in the article that attributes the privatization plan to Congress.

[Cryptoad]

17. Civics 201

Congress wrote the Law......nuff said!

[Jackpine Radical]

18. You're confusing laws with administrative rules.

The privatization move is an example of the latter.

[Cryptoad]

20. Congress must also bear the blame for

anything left out of a Law they pass..,,,, They could have written the law to prevent what happened..... they got it just the way they wanted it..... its an ole Hill trick.

[Hydra]

22. ...

You can tell he prefers hungry hippos.

[Demeter]

14. Sauce for the goose

Is this payback for China buying Smithfield?

Will the Chinese, plagued by quality control problems in China, embrace the freedom to sell feces at $2/lb,

or will the twice-bitten Chinese provide, in an excess of caution, the best quality pork in the nation?

Or, we could end up with the worst of all possible worlds...

[Fuddnik]

4. Oh fuck me!

I'm so fed up with this corrupt, incompetent, corrupt administration!

Does anyone remember how to govern? This is Reagans 9th fucking term!

We've got Monsanto running the FDA, Goldman Sachs running Treasury, Smithfield running USDA, and the Gambino Family running Justice and the Supreme Court.

[abelenkpe]

5. Sums it up quite well. Best post ever. Nt

[CrispyQ]

12. Reagan's 9th term.

Sorry a statement as that is, it made me laugh. Too fucking true.

[adirondacker]

21. +1000. Well put! You may want to add Big Petro running the Dept of the Interioir. nt

[Hydra]

23. Sad but true

He even said he admired Reagan's "revolution."

We were told to ignore that comment, but I'm finding it very relevant these days.

[Nihil]

26. Yep!

Kicking for the OP subject but kicking here because of the excellent summary of the underlying problem.

The best democracy money can buy!

[abelenkpe]

6. You'd think that the crash of 2008

Would have at least done away with the notion that business can regulate itself.

[hog]

7. Chunks?

In my book a chunk and a turd are the same.

[Fuddnik]

8. Chunks come out one end, and turds the other.

[Heather MC]

9. At least they make a great case for encouraging people to go vegan

I mean which would you rather eat Chunks of feces or an Apple? Hmmm tough choice

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

15. And then you have veg that is contaminated by ecoli as well.

Perhaps Congress needs to be force fed this menu of shizzle, and see how they fell about it later.

[Heather MC]

27. Gotta love Corporate Food, fro our Corporate Masters yum

[Cryptoad]

10. a Certain amount of Feces,,,

is allowed in all commercial food products.!

always has been!

YummmmmmY, heh?

[CrispyQ]

13. I hope stories like this wake people up to the horror that is factory farming.

It's a horror for your health, a horror for the environment & most of all, a horror for the animals caught in this heinous system of 'food' production.

[stuntcat]

28. +1

a HORROR for the environment. It blows my mind how many people don't mind the water, energy and land wasted. Totally turning off the meat production right now could help give us a shot at being able to frickin LIVE HERE in the year 2100. But no, we will not, ever.

This has been enough to completely kill any hope I could have for Humanity. This is a perfect example why I'm glad my life is half over.

[CrispyQ]

30. The environmental impact of meat eating on this scale is unbelievable.

The media never covers the stories of what happens to communities when the hog plant comes to town.

I found this interactive map.

http://www.factoryfarmmap.org/

You might have to hit refresh to get it to load. The data looks a bit old, but it's interesting. You can click on the type of 'farm' on the left.

[stuntcat]

31. when you click hogs, the place I grew up turns total red

Eastern NC is filthy with it.

Driving late one night we stopped at a chicken plant and walked up to the trucks full of chickens that were sitting out in the cold. What I saw there was what made me quit meat. (I can't even think of what happens to pigs. It makes me feel more respect for the pigs than for the people who eat them.)
But that night I'll never forget was years before I figured out the Earth wasted on it. Now I know that makes a bigger difference, because NO animals will be able to live, anywhere, if we keep this up.

[CrispyQ]

32. I read "The Pig Who Sang to the Moon" last year.

It's about the emotional lives of farm animals. We humans dismiss animal's emotional lives, thinking that we are the only species who feel emotions. I grew up on a farm, I've lived with animals, so I know that that isn't true. They do have emotions & they do suffer. There are two sayings I like & use as responses when people ask me why I'm a vegetarian:

I want to leave as small a footprint as possible.

I like to eat as far from my own DNA as possible.

[bananas]

19. "Mommy, this meat tastes like shit!" nt

[indepat]

24. When a nation is in perpetual war, funds promoting the public health are scarce, so we will all

need to get used to some fecal matter in the meat we purchase. It's such a small price to pay being made safe from foreign terraists.

[felix_numinous]

25. Time to grow your own

food, and watch out where you get your meat. This is a recipe for diseases to spread. Be careful y'all.

[Bill USA]

29. ahhhh, the efficiencies of privatizing - especially when it means your trusting the contractor to

POLICE HIMSELF!!


Thanks for this important post. Everybody should be made aware of this. Time for people to read The Jungle again.

Recommended, bookmarked, cross-posted