Worse than useless, really, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is a blight on the health of the nation. The corrupt Congressional enablers with their deregulatory zeal are to blame as well.
Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing, which issued the biggest meat recall in U.S. history last week, probably will shut down permanently, the company's general manager said.
[From Meatpacker in Cow-Abuse Scandal May Shut as Congress Turns Up Heat]
If you haven't seen the video, and you have a strong stomach, seek it out. I couldn't watch many minutes, so won't be linking to it.
Hallmark/Westland struggled for years, but it began turning a profit consistently after being approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to begin supplying beef for the federal school-lunch program in 2003, Mr. Magidow said. Within two years, it was supplying about 25 million pounds of beef a year to the program through competitive bidding.
Only 23 of the about 900 boneless beef suppliers in the U.S. are approved to supply such USDA commodity-purchase programs, said Les Johnson, a consultant and former director of the food-distribution division of USDA's Food and Nutrition Service.
To qualify, each facility must have its financial statements reviewed, be federally inspected, receive visits from USDA officials to examine plant processes and equipment and submit a technical explanation about how the plant does everything from controlling germs to testing the fat content of its products.
For the 2004-05 school year, the government named Hallmark/Westland the school lunch program's Supplier of the Year. But the company began to unravel in late January, when a video made by an investigator from the Humane Society of the U.S. came to light.
The video showed workers at the plant trying to make sick or injured cattle stand up with electrical-shock devices, forklifts and high-pressure water hoses. Cattle that can't walk or stand on their own are generally banned from the nation's food supply. Such "downer" cows can be sources of mad-cow disease, which can cause a rare but fatal brain disorder in humans.
The video "just astounded us," Mr. Magidow said Friday. "Our jaws dropped....We thought this place was sparkling perfect."
Here's the real question: how corrupt is the USDA? They apparently had inspectors directly assigned in the plant itself, and still didn't find anything wrong.
The scandal has triggered a heated debate in Congress and elsewhere over the safety of the U.S. meat supply, as well as criticism of both the company and the USDA, which had inspectors stationed at the plant. Lawmakers in Washington and Sacramento have scheduled hearings starting this week to explore how the problem occurred despite the presence of federal inspectors, whether the USDA is doing its job, and whether the meat supplied to the school-lunch program is safe.
