USDA-Certified Cruel: Downed Animals

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USDA-Certified Cruel: Downed Animals KINSHIP CIRCLE PRIMARY - PERMISSION TO CROSS-POST AS WRITTEN 2/23/08: USDA-Certified Cruel: Downers Dragged, Shocked, Rammed http://www.KinshipCircle.org What really happens at slaughterhouses and stockyards... VIEW HSUS UNDERCOVER VIDEOS: http://tinyurl.com/yul2lw EMAIL kinshipcircle FOR WORD DOC OF A FORMATTED LETTER. Easily modify letter and copy/paste it into an email or print out to fax or mail. To identify your federal legislators and find contact info, try: Congress.org: http://www.Congress.org USA Senate: http://www.senate.gov USA House of Representatives: http://www.house.gov Congressional Switchboard: 202-224-3121 =========================================================== CONTACT INFORMATION =========================================================== Secretary of Agriculture Edward W. Schafer U.S. Department of Agriculture 1400 Independence Ave., S.W.; Washington, DC 20250

ph: 202-720-3631; email: Edward.W.Schafer web mail: http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/!ut/p/_s.7_0_A/7_0_1OB?edeployment_action=changenav & navid=FEEDBACK_FORM The Honorable Representative [YOUR REP'S NAME] U.S. House of Representatives Washington, D.C. 20510 The Honorable Senators [YOUR SENATORS' NAMES] The U.S. Senate, U.S. Capitol Building Washington, D.C. 20510 *Kinship Circle cannot guarantee validity of email addresses. During campaigns, recipients may change or disable their emails. Emails from government or corporate websites may be incorrect. =========================================================== SAMPLE LETTER -- This letter is prepared to inform you about the issue. Try

to shorten and personalize your letter before sending. =========================================================== Dear Secretary Schafer, Representative, and Senators: Electric prods shock the heads, necks, spines and rectums of animals crumpled on concrete. Their eyes blink, but their bodies are limp. Organs have begun to fail. Some have crushed bones, torn ligaments. Still, heavy chains drag them. Forklift blades toss their giant bodies as they moan in pain. Concentrated water jets are fired into their nostrils and throats. These are downed animals. Suspended between life and death, they are forced to stand for inspection at slaughterhouses like the Chino, Calif.-based Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. Recent undercover video from Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) depicts Hallmark workers who kick, ram, shock, harass, and even "waterboard" incapacitated cows. The gruesome

images are hardly breaking news. Downed animals are routinely tormented at stockyards and slaughterhouses. Hallmark simply got caught. The breathtaking news is that it took a nonprofit welfare group to disclose flagrant violations of state and federal law. It took a guy with a hidden video camera to prompt the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service to conclude Westland/Hallmark Meat fails to function in compliance with laws instated to deter animal abuse and keep downers out of the food chain. Now that this major supplier to U.S. school lunches has been exposed, 143 million pounds of beef have been recalled. An Office of the Inspector General inquiry could proceed to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution. FSIS inspectors have effectively closed the Hallmark plant. School districts and restaurants have purged Hallmark beef. Yet these band-aid fixes don't address the bigger problem. The U.S.

government must enact enforceable laws to ban the transport, marketing and slaughter of ALL downed animals for ANY purpose. I call upon Congress and regulatory agencies to: * Pass the Downed Animal and Food Safety Protection Act (H.R. 661/ S. 394) which bans slaughter of downer cows, pigs, sheep and all "livestock." * Require humane euthanasia for all downed animals. A current loophole lets immobilized animals suffer until they undergo USDA inspection. As evidenced in the HSUS video, animals are tortured as they await one of 7,600 inspectors charged with monitoring 6,200 processing plants nationwide. * Forbid use of downed animals for "pet" and "livestock" foods. * Pass the Farm Animal Stewardship Purchasing Act (H.R. 1726) to install

basic animal protections (such as humane euthanasia of downers) for producers selling food to federal programs. * Require mandatory training in methods that prevent animals from becoming downers in the first place. Temple Grandin, an American Meat Institute advisor, contends: "90% of all downers are preventable." In 2004, USDA forbid the sale of downed cows for human consumption after the discovery of a Washington state dairy cow diagnosed with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). Plainly, USDA's interim rule is not working. Please expand and codify USDA's ban to assure no commercial goods are processed from animals at risk for transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) and other dangerous foodborne pathogens. No suffering animal should be forced to stagger toward a kill floor for any reason. Thank

you, =========================================================== SOURCE OF INFORMATION / REFERENCE LINKS =========================================================== * Video Reveals Violations of Laws, Abuse of Cows at Slaughterhouse http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/29/AR2 * Inspectors Verify Abuse Of Cows in California http://tinyurl.com/35jcdn * Questions raised on meat safety http://tinyurl.com/yofuzj * HSUS Lauds Authoritative USDA Action to Shutter Southern California Slaughter Plant http://www.hsus.org/press_and_publications/press_releases/usda_action_shuts_hallmark_westland_plant_downer_.html * Animal Cruelty at Hallmark Slaughter Plant Must be Prosecuted https://community.hsus.org/campaign/CA_2008_hallmark_da?rk=97NgX2pqSBdnW * VIDEO: Charged with Cruelty / Slaughterhouse Employees Charged http://video.hsus.org/index.jsp?fr_story=38247e8c8ea570aca40146c9477f280b28113254 * VIDEO: HSUS Investigates Slaughterhouse/ Cruel and Unhealthy Practices Uncovered http://video.hsus.org/index.jsp?fr_story=38247e8c8ea570aca40146c9477f280b28113254 * VIDEO: Cheap Meat - Working in a Slaughterhouse http://tinyurl.com/yul2lw * Support Legislation to Help Downed Animals http://www.farmsanctuary.org/get_involved/update_downed_animals08.html FEATURED FACT SHEET - These Are Downed Animals Download it free for your advocacy materials: http://www.kinshipcircle.org/fact_sheets/DownedOnTheFarmPHOTOS.pdf PLEASE MAKE A TAX-DEDUCTIBLE DONATION TO KINSHIP CIRCLE: http://www.kinshipcircle.org/donation/ DOWNLOAD FREE FACT SHEETS: http://www.kinshipcircle.org/fact_sheets/ KINSHIP CIRCLE Action Campaigns I Literature I Animal Disaster Aid Networking info or kinshipcircle http://www.KinshipCircle.org *

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