Four More Years of Bush's Pro-Meat Earth-wrecking

I am sure most of you are as sad as we are that somehow despite a mismanaged war and ballooning deficit we will have to endure four more years of GW Bush. I will tell you who is happy, though: the meat industry. While the media have briefly reported on all the former industry people in key environmental positions, no one seemed to question the cabal of former meat, dairy and egg industry lobbyists who’ve been placed into enforcement positions with the USDA.

As farmed animal advocates, the problems are clear to us, but I feel that not only progressives but everyone should know how deep this problem is. This was a problem before Bush came around; however, in the last four years we have seen the situation rise to crisis level without hardly a peep from the media - or as Bob Linden, host of Go Vegan Radio would say - the MEAT-ia.

How about Anne Veneman, who just resigned from the secretary of agriculture? Perhaps she will now go back to her job as spokesperson for the beef industry. (1) Would Americans really have felt safer with her at the helm of the discovery of mad cow disease in the U.S. if they knew who she was? Of course a beef industry spokesperson is going to say "Don't worry, it will be on my table for Christmas" as she had done.

In his first four years, Bush's USDA had racked up a host of policy shifts making me really glad I am vegan. In 2000 the USDA began an inspection program called HCCAP. This program is mocked by inspectors who refer to it as: "Have a Cup of Coffee and Pray". Despite the overwhelming fact that America’s meat supply is dangerous with 89% of all U.S. ground beef patties infected with deadly pathogens, HCCAP actually facilitated the weakening of inspections. (2)

Inspectors mostly sit behind desks and do paperwork. When they actually do inspections, they see 140 to 160 carcasses a minute. How much are they able to really see? Worse still, the carcasses of chickens and cows with cancers, tumors and open sores are deemed safe for human consumption, yet how can all of these cases possibly be detected? (3)

While I clearly have an animal liberation agenda, Public Citizen, the group funded by Ralph Nader, certainly doesn't. In 2000, the organization published a study which laid out the situation in American factory farms. Body parts covered in feces, stewing pots boiling with exploded intestines are just part of what they found - near perfect conditions for the spread of pathogens and disease. The meat industry blasted the report and refused to make changes which would cost them money.

Did the media inform the public about the horrible conditions in the factory farms which produce the food most Americans eat daily? Well, no. Instead, the number of meat recalls hits record numbers year after year. The number of deaths from food poisoning in these products increases all the time. And what about the fact that there was no such thing as a flu shot fifteen years ago? Could it be that the real flu they are fighting is the prolific avian influenza, which could destroy the poultry industry if allowed to thrive? Let’s remember too that during the last world-wide epidemic of avian influenza in 1918, over 18 million people died. If this is not enough to convince you that there is a problem, check out the mad cow situation in Washington state.

The meat industry’s claim was that there was only one cow on one farm who tested positive for BSE. They told people not to panic because it was one cow and they caught her. That, however, was literally a lucky break; you see she was a healthy cow for the most part. She had broken her leg, and had she not, she would have walked right into the “food” supply.

That year only 20,000 cows were tested out of 35 million slaughtered. Right after the discovery when the media were paying close attention, Bush's agriculture secretary told the world she would enact tough measures to protect the consumers. Months later when the spotlight was off, she quietly announced that they would not even take effect until 2006. Doesn’t it make you feel safe to know that the meat industry is in charge of policing itself?

While you’re at it President Bush, why not put motorists in charge of traffic tickets. This lax enforcement has real victims. While it doesn't receive the attention that 9/11did, the body counts are far greater. According to STOP(Safe Tables Our Priority): “5,000 people will die a brutally painful death this year and another 325,000 will be hospitalized because of dangerous organisms in their food” (4).

>Annual Hemolytic uremic syndrome cases in the U.S.: 7,500. Primary source: Chicken (5)
>650,000 Americans are sickened by salmonella poisoning annually. 600 die annually. Primary source: Eggs (4)
> 5,000 are sickened daily by Campylobacter and 750 die annually. Primary source: Chicken (5)
> 200 people get sick daily from E.coli poisoning. Primary source: Beef, Eggs (6)

According to STOP, 76 million Americans are poisoned annually by food borne illnesses which could easily be corrected if the animal industries, who are the overwhelming source, would take responsibility. Could you imagine the uproar if terrorists poisoned 76 Americans - let alone 76 million? The fact that heart disease is the number one killer in America is another essay. The meat industry are killers and I am not just talking about the animals.

Scattered throughout America, the victims are easily overlooked by the media and the government agencies meant to protect consumers. Worse still, thousands annually would still be with their families had the meat industry been a little less greedy. The irony of the situation is that in order to kill all the deadly pathogens, you have to overcook the meat which makes it even more carcinogenic, and nothing in the world can kill bovine spongiform encephalitis (mad cow disease).

I think it is wrong to murder animals for food which makes us ill anyway; however, no matter what beliefs you have, for your own safety, a second Bush term is an excellent reason to consider a vegetarian diet. If you think I am biased, I leave you with the words of the Texas-based columnist Molly Ivins, who is far from an animal rights activist: “If you must eat while Republicans control both the White House and Congress, you may want to consider becoming a vegetarian. I am especially fond of the USDA inspection memo we uncovered that drew the following reaction from the Government Accountability Project: "Feces is feces whether it's fibrous or not. The USDA is abandoning the zero-tolerance standard for fecal contamination and replacing it with a new standard: ‘wholesome unless there is gross contamination’. It's impossible for this standard to coexist with the agency's claim that it makes decisions based on science. ‘Gross' is an inherently subjective standard."

Please contact CFA if you need help becoming Vegetarian or Vegan.

-David Agranoff

David is an organizer with Compassion for Farm Animals, an organization that is active in San Diego and Tijuana. You can reach CFA at www.vegsandiego.com

1. Farmedanimal.net newsletter December 2003
2. “Canadian scientists test for e. Coli” Reuters news service August 10th 2000
3. “Industry forum” Meat and poultry March 1998
4. www.safetables.org Safe Tables Our Priority letter to President Bush
5. CDC estimate Quoted in Food revolution by John Robbins.
6. Food revolution by John Robbins