Bolcao and Niman are not the only ag voices recounting the cavalier disposal of cull dairy cows which owners try to get on the truck to the slaughterhouse even if the cows will never walk off on their own steam. A 2010 report from the USDA's Inspector General identified four operations that dumped 211 cows unfit for human food, calling the operators "individuals who have a history of picking up dairy cows with drugs in their system and dropping them off at the plant."
And two of the four mad cows that have been found in the US since 2003 were also "downers," unable to walk which is reported in depth in my food and drug expose, Born with a Junk Food Deficiency. Cow number two, discovered in late 2004, was purchased at a livestock sale by an "order buyer" who sent her to the slaughterhouse four days later, according to a government report. When the truck arrived at H&B Packing in Waco, according to the Star-Telegram, she was already dead and so she was transported instead to Champion Pet Food, across town. Even though there were reports that the cow was unable to walk at the livestock where she was nonetheless sold for meat, the farmer who owned her told government investigators that "the cow had always been excitable and had fallen while she was being loaded to go to the market, but that this was not unusual behavior for her." Right.
Cow number three, discovered in March, 2006, was also a downer who "had at her side a 2- to 3-week old red Charolais cross female calf" at the time of her death, according to the USDA report. In both cases, the government protected the identities of the ranches and allowed them to resume operations in a month--though the cause of the Mad Cow disease was never found. With the first US mad cow, found in late 2003, officials refused to tell the public which restaurants and outlets may have served meat containing the cow.
Instances of cruelty are not the only expected result of the government's cost-cutting capitulation to private industry by reducing and eliminating inspection. Federal meat inspectors are also responsible for a plant's compliance with the Federal Meat Inspection Act, Poultry Products Inspection Act and Egg Products Inspection Act. Yet since Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) was implemented in 2000 (a self-policing measure that was the precursor to HIMP) it is increasingly hard to do their jobs.
"My plant in Pennsylvania processed 1,800 cows a day, 220 per hour," federal meat inspector Lester Friedlander told the press in 2004 and stopping the l ine cost about $5,000 a minute, so veterinarians are pressured "to look the other way" when violations happen.
Dean Wyatt, a Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) Supervisory Public Health Veterinarian, reiterated Friedlander's charges in 2010 Congressional hearings. Federal meat inspectors are unable to do their job on either end, he testified, because FSIS district offices often side with plant management over inspectors, reducing them to powerless figureheads who are sometimes openly laughed at by plant workers.
Stan Painter of the National Joint Council of Food Inspection Locals repeated the charges in additional Congressional testimony . "Sometimes, even if we write noncompliance reports, some of the larger companies use their political muscle to get those overturned at the agency level or by going to the Congressional delegation to get this inspection staff to back off," he said.
Soon after HACCP was implemented in 2000, 62 percent of meat inspectors in a survey admitted that they had allowed feces, vomit, and metal shards in food on a daily or weekly basis, which had not happened before HACCP. Almost 20 percent of inspectors said they'd been told not to document violations. Eighty percent of 451 inspectors said that HACCP interfered with their ability to enforce the law and the public's right to know about food safety. (No wonder HACCP has been dubbed "Have a Cup of Coffee and Pray.")
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