(Yet another good reason to be a vegetarian.... --SW)
Meat From Diseased Animals Approved For Consumers
By Lance Gay <gayl(at)shns.com>
Scripps Howard News Service
http://www.gomemphis.com/shns/story.cfm?pk=DISEASEDFOOD-07-14-00&cat=WW
7-15-00
WASHINGTON - The federal agency overseeing
food inspection is imposing new rules reclassifying
as safe for human consumption animal carcasses
with cancers, tumors and open sores.
Federal meat inspectors and consumer groups are
protesting the move to classify tumors and open
sores as aesthetic problems, which permits the
meat to get the government's purple seal of
approval as a wholesome food product.
"I don't want to eat pus from a chicken that has
pneumonia. I think it's gross," said Wenonah Hauter,
director of Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy
Project. "Most Americans don't want to eat this sort
of contamination in their meals."
Delmer Jones, a federal food inspector for 41 years
who lives in Renlap, Ala., said he's so revolted by
the lowering of food wholesomeness standards that
he doesn't buy meat at the supermarket anymore
because he doesn't trust that it is safe to eat.
"I eat very little to no meat, but sardines and fish,"
said Jones, president of the National Joint Council
of Meat Inspection Locals, a union of 7,000 meat
inspectors nationwide affiliated with the American
Federation of Government Employees. He said he's
trying to get his wife to stop eating meat. "I've told
her what she's eating."
The union is battling related Agriculture Department
plans to rely on scientific testing of samples of
butchered meats to determine the wholesomeness
of meat, rather than traditional item-by-item scrutiny
by federal inspectors. A 1959 federal law requires
inspectors from the Agriculture Department's Food
Inspection and Safety System to inspect all
slaughtered animals before they can be sold for
human consumption.
The Agriculture Department began implementing the
new policy as part of a pilot project in 24 slaughter
houses last October, and plans to expand the
system nationwide covering poultry, beef and pork.
The agency this month extended until Aug. 29 the
time for the public to comment on the regulations,
and won't issue final rules until after the comments
are received.
In 1998, the inspections and safety system
reclassified an array of animal diseases as being
"defects that rarely or never present a direct public
health risk" and said "unaffected carcass portions"
could be passed on to consumers by cutting out
lesions.
Among animal diseases the agency said don't
present a health danger are:
- Cancer;
- A pneumonia of poultry called airsacculitis;
- Glandular swellings or lymphomas;
- Sores;
- Infectious arthritis;
- Diseases caused by intestinal worms.
In the case of tumors, the guidelines state: "remove
localized lesion(s) and pass unaffected carcass
portions."
"They just cut off the areas,'' said Carol Blake,
spokeswoman for the Agriculture Department's
inspection and safety system.
But Jones and consumer groups say production
lines are moving so fast that they can't catch all the
diseased carcasses, and some are ending up on
supermarket shelves.
"When I started inspecting, inspectors were looking
at 13 birds a minute, then 40, and now it's 91 birds a
minute with three inspectors. You cannot do your
job with 91 birds a minute," Jones said.
The Agriculture Department is also experimenting
with proposed rules that would require federal food
inspectors to monitor what the plant employees are
doing, rather than inspecting each carcass
individually. They are aimed at bringing a new
scientific approach to federal meat inspection to cut
down on E. coli bacteria and other contamination.
The inspection and safety agency says a survey of
pilot plants using the new system concluded that
less than 1 percent of the poultry examined at the
end of the production line and released for public
consumption was unwholesome.
At a public hearing on the findings this year, Karen
Henderson of Agriculture's division of field
operations admitted that defective carcasses are
being approved for human use under the pilot
program.
"Absolutely. There's no system that we are aware of
that is capable of removing every defect from the
process," she said.
Felicia Nestor, director of the Government
Accountability Project, a Washington watchdog
group, said the pilot project found chickens with
higher levels of fecal and other contamination than
in traditional methods of inspecting.
"A lot of diseased animals are going out," she said.
A. Raymond Randolph, a federal appeals court
judge, this month said federal food safety laws
require meat and poultry inspectors to examine
every carcass that moves through slaughterhouses
and processing plants.
"The laws clearly contemplate that when
inspections are done, it will be federal inspectors,
rather than private employees, who will make the
critical determination whether a product is
adulterated or unadulterated," he said. "Under the
proposed plan, federal inspectors would be
inspecting people, not carcasses."
MainPage
http://www.rense.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Wingate
Anomalous Images and UFO Files
http://www.anomalous-images.com
<A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A>
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html
<A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html">Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]</A>
http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
<A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/">ctrl</A>
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
