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USDA's recall of 143 million pounds of beef yesterday (the largest meat recall in U.S. history) follows the Humane Society of the United States' disclosure of unnerving video footage from a Hallmark/Westland Meat Company slaughter plant in Chino, California, where workers were taped tormenting "downer" cows (animals that cannot walk and are clearly ill) to get them to stand and pass inspections.
Because downer cows can carry illnesses, most notably bovine spongiform encephalopathy (or "mad cow disease"), they are prohibited from entering the food supply. Or so we thought. USDA says that Westland sold 27 million pounds of meat in 2007 to federal food and nutrition programs, including the National School Lunch Program. (As if school lunches were appetizing in the first place.)
According to a statement by Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer, "It is extremely unlikely that these animals were at risk for BSE because of the multiple safeguards; however, this action is necessary because plant procedures violated USDA regulations."
I'm not so convinced. Less than 1 percent of beef cattle are tested for mad cow disease in the U.S., and usually only downer cows. Because BSE has a long incubation period, infected cattle might not appear sick. In Europe, where testing is more rigorous, more than 1,000 cases of BSE turned up in healthy cattle headed for slaughter between 2001 and 2006.
Humans who eat meat from diseased animals risk contracting Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD), the human variant of BSE. CJD cases occur in the U.S. each year, but our government shrugs them off as spontaneously occurring or hereditary – which some of them likely are. But the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) does not list CJD as a reportable disease, meaning the agency doesn't have accurate information regarding the prevalence of the disease (they don't require autopsy information be submitted, which is the only way to diagnose CJD). The symptoms of CJD mirror those of Alzheimer's, complicating tracking of the disease even more. Consumer groups argue that CJD is largely under-diagnosed, especially in light of these numbers: Alzheimer's cases have increased more than 50-fold since 1979 – from less than 1,000 to more than 50,000 in 2000.
Choose your meat wisely. Cattle fed rendered animal protein are most at risk of carrying BSE. Certified organic and grass-fed animals are a healthy and smart alternative.
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