From: tms@cs.umd.edu (Tom Swiss (not Swift, not Suiss, Swiss!))
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban,alt.conspiracy
Subject: Re: Hepatitis and Taco Bell Scare.
Date: 26 Jan 93 18:05:37 GMT
Followup-To: alt.folklore.urban
Organization: The Reality Liberation Front (pixels to the people!)

pierce@lanai.cs.ucla.edu (Brad Pierce) writes:
>Reprinted from Multinational Monitor, Vol. 12, No. 4, April 
)1991, p. 4:
)--------
)
)Copyright 1991 Essential Information, Inc. All rights reserved.
)Reproduction of all or part of MM for non-commercial use is allowed
)with proper credit to the Monitor.
)-------------
)REVISITING THE JUNGLE
)by Jim Sugarman
)
)A new streamlined beef-inspection system at slaughterhouses is
)allowing diseased meat onto the market at an alarming pace, according
)to whistleblowing meat inspectors. They condemn a United States
)Department of Agriculture (USDA) plan to rely on beef-company
)employees to perform the majority of inspections and restrict
)government inspectors to spot checks at predetermined points on
)the processing line. A group of 21 federal meat inspectors who
)oversee plants using the system state, "in good conscience we no
)longer can say that we know USDA-approved beef is wholesome." In
)an open letter sent to Congress in March, the inspectors write,
)"based on the filth and disease we see getting through every day
)... the program isn't working."
)
)A similar streamlined process was introduced in 1984 for chicken,
)leading to greatly increased rates of salmonella contamination,
)reports Tom Devine of the Government Accountability Project, a
)watchdog group working with the inspectors.
)
)The inspectors believe that USDA management advocates both the
)chicken and beef streamlined systems so that slaughterhouses may
)increase line speeds. A 1988 USDA news release that the new system
)would increase slaughterhouse productivity by 40 percent.
)
)In their letter to Congress, the federal inspectors cite examples
)of meat contamination which they previously would have stopped but
)now must let pass, including "an eight fold increase in head
)contamination, whose meat goes into products like ground beef ... ; 
)diseases like measles [and] tapeworms; [and] carcasses which fall
)on the floors ... which have blood, cattle feces, urine, ingesta,
)hair, pus from abscesses, grease, dirt, spit and tobacco [on them]."
)-------------
)Multinational Monitor [ISSN 0197-4637] is published monthly by
)Essential Information, Inc., P.O. Box 19405, Washington, DC 20036.
)Telephone: (202) 387-8030.
)
)--------------------  FORWARDED POSTING  -----------------------------
)
)Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive
)From: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu (Rich Winkel)
)Subject: MM: Gagging on Beef
)Message-ID: <1992Dec8.091526.24301@mont.cs.missouri.edu)
)Date: Tue, 8 Dec 1992 09:15:26 GMT
)
)[Taken from the November 1992 Multinational Monitor.  Subscription info below]
)
)Gagging on Beef
)
)A FORMER OFFICER of the U.S.  Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Food
)Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) has come forward to reveal that the
)USDA ordered inspection agents to release to the public beef carcasses
)that may be infected with tuberculosis (TB).  A secret change in beef
)inspection standards has allowed carcasses infected with TB to be
)shipped to consumers, according to Dr.  Wilfred Rosario Sr., a 16-year
)veterinary medical officer for FSIS in Southern California.
)
)Rosario recently disclosed that all area FSIS veterinary meat inspectors
)were verbally instructed on May 19, 1989 to no longer condemn certain
)cattle carcasses confirmed by laboratory analysis as displaying symp-
)toms of TB.  No proposed change in the standards for condemning TB
)carcasses has been published in the Federal Register, and no written
)communication on the change was ever received by FSIS employees.
)
)"Meat that under current law must be condemned due to confirmed TB
)symptoms is now being routinely released for people to eat," says Ken
)Morrison, an attorney assisting the Government Accountability
)Project (GAP), a Washington, D.C.-based whistleblower support
)organization that is representing Rosario.  "This secret, off-the-books
)change in inspection standards has created an illegal risk to public
)health and safety."
)
)TB-infected beef has been routinely condemned in the United States
)since 1906.  According to Morrison, federal inspection regulations
)adopted twenty years ago stipulate that a cattle carcass may only be
)passed for human food if the carcass is found free of TB lesions during
)a visual inspection.  If the inspection reveals evidence of lesions,
)the inspector is authorized to condemn the carcass immediately.
)
)The 1989 order communicated to the inspectors, however, that they were
)to condemn only those carcasses for which laboratory tests found TB ba-
)cilli on small tissue samples.  Rosario charges that he was ordered to
)release a carcass that displayed markings he diagnosed as TB lesions.
)Disregarding the results of a microscopic laboratory test confirming
)that the lesions were in fact characteristic of those caused by TB, his
)supervisor would not allow the carcass to be condemned, citing the new
)policy.  Rosario was subsequently presented with a cash award by the
)agency "for recognizing lesions of tuberculosis" on the very carcass
)which had long since been shipped to and consumed by the public.
)
)Jim Greene, spokes person for FSIS says, "We are exhaustively looking
)into the alleged charges....  We cannot comment on whether or not
)there has been a change in standards because we are still in the
)process of investigating."  According to Morrison, however, the USDA has
)repeatedly defended the new policy permitting the release of infected
)carcasses.
)
)Department of Agriculture officials have refused to meet with Rosario
)to discuss his concerns, even after the U.S.  Office of Special Coun-
)sel found a "substantial likelihood" that Rosario was correct and
)ordered then-Secretary of Agriculture Clayton Yeutter to investigate.
)In a three-and-a-quarter page report to the Special Counsel released in
)October 1990, Yeutter, now President Bush's deputy campaign chair,
)simply dismissed Rosario's concerns as "an apparent misunderstanding"
)of the policy and the terminology used by the agency.
)
)Morrison sharply criticizes the report, claiming that Yeutter side-
)steps essential issues in his analysis.  For example, Yeutter fails to
)address the fact that the policy requires the release of carcasses when
)the laboratory is unable to find any germ that explains the presence
)of TB-like lesions--meaning that the test has been inconclusive.  As
)Morrison says, "The defense that an inconclusive test result means
)lesions may not be tuberculosis begs the question," since federal
)regulation prohibits the release of a carcass unless it is "found
)free" of TB lesions.
)
)A November 1990 letter from Tom Devine, GAP legal director, to Donald Di
)Julio, of the U.S.  Office of Special Counsel, notes, "Current
)regulations ... prohibit the release of carcasses not 'found free' of TB
)lesions--an affirmative burden clearly not being definitively met
)under the new policy."
)
)Yeutter points out in his report that a subsequent culture test of the
)carcass released by Rosario failed to demonstrate the presence of the TB
)germ.  Morrison counters that the carcass was shipped out two months
)before the test results were available.  "The administration's
)doublespeak responses appear to be intentional attempts to avoid the
)real issues in order to deceive the public," says Morrison.
)
)Devine's letter to Di Julio outlines several questions about the TB
)policy, including whether the policy has been implemented nationally or
)just regionally; what is the scientific basis for implementing the new
)policy; and under what legal authority was the new policy imple-
)mented.  Devine says that Yeutter's report fails to address any of these
)issues.
)
)Morrison says that the change in beef inspection standards is particu-
)larly shocking in light of the rise of tuberculosis among the U.S. popu-
)lation.  "The law imposes burdens on our national food inspection sys-
)tem in order to protect the public from diseased products," he says.
)"The Bush administration has no legal right to expose consumers to any
)increased risk from meat that should be condemned, even if the motive is
)to save the meat industry a little money."
)
)--Julie Gozan and Holley Knaus
)
)Multinational Monitor was founded by Ralph Nader and is published 11 times a
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===============================================================================
Tom Swiss/tms@cs.umd.edu  |  "Born to die"   |   Keep your laws off my brain!
     "What's so funny 'bout peace, love and understanding?" - Nick Lowe 
                     Keep your values off my family.
Brooke's Law:
      Whenever a system becomes completely defined, some damn fool
      discovers something which either abolishes the system or
      expands it beyond recognition.