Modern Meat

[Guest guest]

Hi Everybody,

 

This was forwarded to me. It may have already made it's rounds, so I

appologize if it's redundant.

Anyway, sounds like a critically important show to watch especially with

a non-vegan.

Jeeez, I wonder if they will get sued by the Beef Council! Let's hope

so. The more exposure, the better!

 

Syndee Collison

 

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Modern Meat: A PBS Frontline Documentary

Thursday, April 18, at 9pm, 60 minutes

(check TV schedule for local time)

 

 

It's as American as apple pie and vastly more popular.

 

The hamburger has become our national food: Americans

eat more meat than any other people in the world, with

the average person devouring three hamburgers a week.

And with more meat available than ever before, today's

beef costs 30 percent less than it did in 1970, making

it that much more attractive to consumers looking for

a quick, cheap meal.

 

Yet despite new federal safety regulations, more than

100 million pounds of meat has been recalled since

1998 due to suspected bacterial contamination. And

just last summer, the nation's largest meat processor

had to recall 500,000 pounds of beef contaminated with

e.coli bacteria from seventeen states.

 

How much does the average American know about the beef

they're eating? Have dramatic changes in the U.S. meat

industry compromised the overall safety of American

beef? And are the new federal regulations enough to

guarantee the safety of the meat we eat?

 

FRONTLINE explores these and other questions in

" Modern Meat, " airing Thursday, April 18, at 9 P.M. on

PBS (check local listings). Through interviews with

current and former U.S. Department of Agriculture

officials, meat inspectors, food safety experts, and

industry representatives, the one-hour documentary

reveals how today's highly-industrialized meat

business has fundamentally changed the composition of

the typical American burger, causing some to fear the

spread of serious -- and even deadly -- bacteria. The

program also explores the powerful U.S. meat

industry's attempts to resist certain government

regulations aimed at preventing contaminated meat from

ending up in supermarkets and fast food chains across

America.

 

" I think what the [meat] industry is saying is that

they don't want to be accountable for the product that

they're selling, " says Eric Schlosser, author of Fast

Food Nation, an expose of the meat and fast food

industry. " This industry has fought against food

safety inspection for a hundred years. "

 

" Modern Meat " takes viewers inside the U.S. meat

industry, beginning at the cattle ranch and then

moving on to the " feedlot " -- a huge industrial

holding pen where as many as 100,000 cattle are held

together until they are fat enough to be slaughtered.

Then the carcasses make their way down a Detroit-style

assembly line -- or " dis-assembly line, " as one

industry insider quips -- where modern advances have

enabled some meat companies to strip as many as 400

carcasses an hour -- nearly three times as many as in

1970.

 

But such modern efficiency may pose potential health

risks.

 

In " Modern Meat, " FRONTLINE speaks with numerous

scientists and industry observers who raise serious

concerns about today's meat production system. With

large numbers of animals being raised together in huge

feedlots covered with feces, they say, it's easy for

bacteria to spread from one animal to another.

 

" Cows tend to produce feces [and] feces is primarily

bacteria, " says Glen Morris, a microbiologist at the

University of Maryland and a former USDA official

" When those bacteria are spread around, there's ample

opportunity for bacteria to be spread from one cow to

the next.

 

" In the larger feedlots, " he adds, " there's a greater

chance for the passage of microorganisms back and

forth. All of that contributes to the spread of

microorganisms like e. coli. "

 

Dr. Robert Tauxe is also concerned. " The new highly

industrialized way we produce meat has opened up new

ecological homes for a number of bacteria, " says

Tauxe, head of the Centers for Disease Control's

Foodborne Illness Section.

 

Gone are the days, Tauxe says, when a hamburger patty

contained the meat from a single cow; with enormous

numbers of cattle now being herded, fattened,

slaughtered, and ground up together, it's virtually

impossible to determine how many cows contribute to a

single burger.

 

" If we take meat from a thousand different animals and

grind that together, " he says, " we're pooling bacteria

from a thousand different animals as well. "

 

What's more, there is increasing evidence that the

modern meat industry's widespread use of antibiotics

to promote growth and keep livestock healthy may

result in the development of bacteria strains that are

resistant to antibiotic treatment.

 

The consequences of bacterial contamination can be

deadly. In 1993, Jack in the Box hamburgers

contaminated with a deadly strain of e. coli killed

four children and injured 750, causing the government

to seek a more scientific system for inspecting meat.

 

For decades, industry experts say, meat inspectors had

practiced the " poke and sniff " method of visually

inspecting carcasses for signs of disease. Following

the Jack in the Box outbreak, the government proposed

implementing a new inspection system -- known as

" HACCP " (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points)

-- that would require microbial testing to detect the

presence of invisible -- yet harmful -- bacteria such

as e. coli and salmonella.

 

The proposed testing for salmonella, however, was not

embraced by the meat industry. In " Modern Meat, "

FRONTLINE speaks with industry insiders and government

officials who say the powerful U.S. food lobby --

which has contributed heavily to key Capitol Hill

lawmakers -- aggressively fought including this

testing as part of the new regulations.

 

It's a charge that the American Meat Institute's J.

Patrick Boyle denies. " It's not the beef industry

that's fighting standards that are meaningful, that

improve the wholesomeness of the product, " Boyle tells

FRONTLINE. " The beef industry has reservations about

unscientific standards that have no relation to the

safety of our products. "

 

The USDA resisted industry pressure, and in 1996 the

U.S. meat industry began making the transition to the

new inspection system. Since then, the USDA has

reported a marked drop in salmonella contamination of

ground beef, while the CDC has also begun to see a

drop in some food borne illnesses. Yet the American

consumer still faces serious risks.

 

Each year, the CDC tracks numerous cases of food

poisoning, while the USDA maintains a running list of

tainted meat recalls. The growth in global trade,

meanwhile, has increased the risk of diseased cattle

or beef coming into the country and decimating the

U.S. livestock population. Last year, for example,

USDA Inspector General Roger Viadero discovered that

650,000 pounds of foreign meat from a country

embargoed because of foot and mouth disease found its

way into America's heartland.

 

In addition, a recent court ruling threatens to limit

the government's enforcement of its new food safety

regulations. In " Modern Meat, " FRONTLINE examines a

lawsuit filed by Texas meat grinding company Supreme

Beef against the U.S. Department of Agriculture. When

the USDA effectively shut down the company after it

failed bacterial contamination tests three times --

once after nearly 50 percent of its meat was found to

be contaminated with salmonella -- the company sued.

Supported in its lawsuit by the National Meat

Association, Supreme Beef charged that the government

didn't have the right to shut down its operations

simply because it failed to meet the USDA salmonella

standards. Last month, a federal appeals court ruled

in favor of the meat industry, prompting concern from

some industry observers.

 

Carol Tucker Foreman, head of food safety at the

Consumer Federation of America and a former USDA

official, believes the modern meat production and

distribution system leaves consumers vulnerable to a

widespread outbreak of bacterial contamination. She

points to a case in which sixteen deaths and five

stillbirths were connected to Ball Park Franks found

to be contaminated with deadly listeria.

 

" Those hot dogs were shipped everywhere, " Foreman

says. " And thousands and thousands of them were made

every day. So the potential for one mistake rippling

out and causing thousands of deaths is there. "

 

Following the broadcast, visit FRONTLINE's Web site at

www.pbs.org/frontline for more on this report,

including:

 

Statistics and articles on the industrialization of

the U.S. meat industry;

 

Background reports from inside the slaughterhouse,

readings and interviews on current conditions, and the

movement for humane slaughter;

 

Facts and advice for the consumer about choosing meat

and eating safely;

 

Extended interviews, chronologies and a video report.

" Modern Meat " is a FRONTLINE co-production with Cam

Bay Productions. The producer and writer is Doug

Hamilton. The co-producer is Steve Johnson. The senior

producer for FRONTLINE is Sharon Tiller.

 

FRONTLINE is produced by WGBH Boston and is broadcast

nationwide on PBS.

 

Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support

of PBS viewers. National sponsorship for FRONTLINE is

provided by EarthLink® and NPR®.

 

FRONTLINE is closed-captioned for deaf and

hard-of-hearing viewers.

 

The executive producer for FRONTLINE is David Fanning.

Press contacts for FRONTLINE:

Erin Martin Kane [erin_martin_kane]

Chris Kelly [chris_kelly]

(617) 300-3500

 

FRONTLINE XX/April 2002