Posted on 07/27/2002 3:01:40 PM PDT by GeneD
A sluggish investigation by the Agriculture Department into evidence that tainted meat had entered the marketplace exposed thousands of consumers to potentially deadly bacteria, possibly contributing to some illnesses, members of Congress said yesterday.
Though federal law requires daily inspections, nearly 100 days elapsed from when ConAgra Beef began producing the questionable beef and last week, when the department announced the second-largest meat recall, Democrats in the House and Senate pointed out.
"The long delay between contamination and recall is striking," the Democrats, including Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois and Representative Henry A. Waxman of California, wrote in a letter to Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman.
They and others characterized the delay as a "red flag for our nation's food safety system."
The criticism was issued as the scope of the E. coli outbreak continued to expand. At least 28 people in seven states have fallen ill from the meat, 9 more than initially reported when the department announced the 19-million-pound recall. Seven people have been hospitalized.
Even after government tests confirmed the presence of E. coli in meat that was making its way to stores, it took a month before a full recall began, and that led the lawmakers to say the Bush administration was backing away from regulation at the consumer's expense.
"The public health is not being protected by the government," Mr. Waxman said. "I'm afraid that we're moving in the wrong direction."
The Agriculture Department called the criticism unfair, pointing out that the largest meat recall, of 25 million pounds of beef, took even longer to initiate in President Bill Clinton's second term.
Science, not politics, dictates the speed at which smidgens of contaminated meat can be traced from their origins, department officials said, and a recall could not have been justified until investigators knew for certain that ConAgra was at fault.
"Unless you have the proof, you don't want to falsely accuse anyone," a spokesman for the department, Steven Cohen, said.
The dispute coincides with an admission by prison officials in Colorado, the center of the outbreak, that a warden at the Buena Vista prison deliberately served recalled beef as meatloaf to hundreds of inmates on Saturday, confident that high cooking temperatures would eradicate bacteria.
A spokeswoman for the Colorado Corrections Department, Alison Morgan, said that 2,600 pounds of recalled meat had been served to inmates in a month and a half, mostly unwittingly, and that no illnesses had resulted. Although the warden broke no internal rules, Ms. Morgan added, the department has returned the remaining beef.
"It's outrageous," said Representative Diana DeGette, Democrat of Colorado.
"What would happen," Ms. DeGette said, "if the principal at your child's school knew meat was contaminated and decided, `Well, let's just serve it up anyway'?"
The controversy over the recall has prompted legislation to tighten food inspection laws, but even with tougher rules, the Agriculture Department said, its reaction could not have been much swifter.
Although it found traces of E. coli on May 14 at a meat wholesaler in Denver, it took more than two months, including 15 days of required tests, to track the contamination involving ConAgra.
And he would be exactly right.
Unless you are the Tyson Company and you want to run your primary competitor out of business. Then the rules change, especially if your footstool is the president.
Hey! Keep your scientific accuracy out of our polemics!
Not if you cook it before you eat it.
I agree with you in general but in this particular case I think it's probably just sloppy writing.
It can be an annoying trait. 8^)
100 day old fresh meat in the stores? I think I'll become vegetarian again.
Upton Sinclair, where are you when we need you?
Naw, Clinton grabbed the Big Meat headlines, so to speak.
I thought it was Monica who grabbed the Little Meat??
"Unless you have the proof, you don't want to falsely accuse anyone," a spokesman for the department, Steven Cohen, said.
What do logic and fair play have to do with it? Nothing according to liberals. Not a peep from them on X42's watch, notice? I just hope the public will see through this smoke screen (though I don't hold out hope).
Thorough cooking kills bacteria (duh).
If I had just one wish, and couldn't use it for personal gain, this is what I would choose:
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