and they act surprised

[Guest guest]

Meatpacker in Cow-Abuse Scandal May Shut as Congress Turns Up Heat

 

By DAVID KESMODEL and JANE ZHANG

February 25, 2008; Page A1

 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120378150987388423.html

 

CHINO, Calif. -- Last year, a man carrying a hidden video camera took a

$12-an-hour

job at a little-known beef slaughterhouse here. Now the meatpacker is about to

collapse,

and has become a flashpoint in a national debate over meat safety and the

quality

of food Americans serve their schoolchildren.

 

Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Co., one of the biggest suppliers of beef to

the

national school-lunch program before videos showing animal cruelty at the plant

helped trigger the biggest meat recall in U.S. history, probably will shut down

permanently, according to the company's general manager, Anthony Magidow.

 

The company's president and owner, Steve Mendell, hasn't responded to

requests for comment, and its controller, Juan Acevedo, referred an interview

request

to Mr. Magidow.

 

" I don't see any way we can reopen, " Mr. Magidow said in a telephone

interview. The closely held company, which had about $100 million a year in

sales,

is starting to run low on cash, he said.

 

Hallmark/Westland struggled for years, but it began turning a profit

consistently

after being approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to begin supplying

beef

for the federal school-lunch program in 2003, Mr. Magidow said. Within two

years,

it was supplying about 25 million pounds of beef a year to the program through

competitive

bidding.

 

Only 23 of the about 900 boneless beef suppliers in the U.S. are approved to

supply

such USDA commodity-purchase programs, said Les Johnson, a consultant and former

director of the food-distribution division of USDA's Food and Nutrition Service.

 

To qualify, each facility must have its financial statements reviewed, be

federally

inspected, receive visits from USDA officials to examine plant processes and

equipment

and submit a technical explanation about how the plant does everything from

controlling

germs to testing the fat content of its products.

 

For the 2004-05 school year, the government named Hallmark/Westland the school

lunch program's Supplier of the Year. But the company began to unravel in late

January, when a video made by an investigator from the Humane Society of the

U.S.

came to light.

 

The video showed workers at the plant trying to make sick or injured cattle

stand

up with electrical-shock devices, forklifts and high-pressure water hoses.

Cattle

that can't walk or stand on their own are generally banned from the nation's

food supply. Such " downer " cows can be sources of mad-cow disease, which

can cause a rare but fatal brain disorder in humans.

 

The video " just astounded us, " Mr. Magidow said Friday. " Our jaws

dropped....We thought this place was sparkling perfect. "

 

The company closed voluntarily, fired two workers and began taking steps to be

reauthorized to resume operations. But Mr. Magidow said additional Humane

Society

video provided to the USDA apparently gave the agency ammunition to issue a

recall

of 143 million pounds of beef produced by the plant, dating back as far as

February

2006. (Watch that video.)

 

Citing the continuing investigation, a USDA spokeswoman declined to say what

evidence

spurred the agency to act.

 

Debate in Congress

 

The scandal has triggered a heated debate in Congress and elsewhere over the

safety

of the U.S. meat supply, as well as criticism of both the company and the USDA,

which had inspectors stationed at the plant. Lawmakers in Washington and

Sacramento

have scheduled hearings starting this week to explore how the problem occurred

despite

the presence of federal inspectors, whether the USDA is doing its job, and

whether

the meat supplied to the school-lunch program is safe.

 

On Thursday, Sen. Herb Kohl, a Wisconsin Democrat who heads an agriculture

appropriations

subcommittee, plans to hold a hearing to address, among other things, " serious

questions on risks posed to children by the recalled beef, " his office said.

Secretary of Agriculture Ed Schafer and James Hodges, president of the American

Meat Institute Foundation, an industry trade group, are expected to attend.

 

Hallmark/Westland, meanwhile, has been deluged with hundreds of emails by

consumers

furious about the video, says Mr. Magidow. He says the recall is too extreme in

scope, and that the company is being unfairly maligned, because there is no

evidence

that any of the recalled meat was contaminated.

 

The USDA says no one has gotten sick from the meat and that there is very

little

risk of harm from consuming it.

 

The company fired the two workers shown in the video that the Humane Society

released

in January. Daniel Ugarte Navarro, a 49-year-old former cattle-pen manager at

the

plant, faces the possibility of more than five years in prison on felony and

misdemeanor

charges of animal cruelty, said Deborah Ploghaus, deputy district attorney in

San

Bernardino County. Luis Sanchez, 32, who worked for Mr. Navarro, faces three

misdemeanor

charges.

 

Efforts by The Wall Street Journal to reach the two men were unsuccessful. The

daily Press-Enterprise in Riverside, Calif., quoted a woman who identified

herself

as Mr. Sanchez's wife denying that her husband had done anything illegal. The

paper also spoke with Mr. Navarro's wife, but she declined to comment.

 

Mr. Navarro was a supervisor with some 30 years of experience, Mr. Magidow

said.

He said Mr. Navarro dealt directly with USDA inspectors conducting audits, as

well

as private companies that bought meat from the plant and conducted their own

audits.

 

Suspended Operations

 

After the video was released, the USDA launched an investigation into the

plant's

practices, and the company voluntarily suspended operations. The plant began

trying

to address its problems so it could resume production, Mr. Magidow said. Among

other

steps, it hired Arrowsight, a Mount Kisco, N.Y., monitoring company, to help it

step up surveillance. The company installed about 15 video cameras throughout

the

slaughterhouse to help monitor activities.

 

Arrowsight couldn't be reached for comment.

 

Leading up to the weekend of the recall, Feb. 16-17, " We were starting to

do all the things necessary " to be reauthorized, Mr. Magidow said. " We

were doing everything we could to make sure we had the foremost facility. "

 

But that weekend, in a phone call to Hallmark/Westland's president, Mr.

Mendell,

at 1 a.m. West Coast time, the USDA informed the meatpacker that new evidence

had

emerged that suggested a significant violation of USDA safety rules and the need

for a massive recall. It was the additional undercover video shot by the Humane

Society, Mr. Magidow said. He said he hasn't seen the video, but said company

officials have been told that it shows an animal that had fallen down before

entering

the " kill " or " knocking " box, where the animals are slaughtered.

The animal is about " half in, half out " of the box, he said.

 

Wayne Pacelle, the Humane Society's president, confirmed that description

of the video.

The video apparently showed only one cow in such a situation, Mr. Magidow

said.

But the USDA interviewed an employee who worked on the slaughtering line who

told

them that, on rare occasions, the company went ahead and slaughtered an animal

that

had stumbled prior to slaughter after initially being cleared for slaughter by

inspectors.

The company is supposed to first contact a USDA inspector in such situations.

 

The employee told USDA officials that he had followed instructions from Mr.

Navarro

that if an animal had slipped prior to reaching the kill box but was otherwise a

normal, ambulatory animal, to go ahead with the slaughter, according to Mr.

Magidow.

The employee began working at the company in February 2006; that became the

start

date of the recall.

" We are going by what we were told, we have not been allowed to see the

video, "

Mr. Magidow said.

 

The USDA has said it received new evidence that led to the recall covering two

years, but it has declined to disclose the details, because its investigation is

pending. " We know that it was a very rare occurrence, " USDA official Kenneth

Petersen told reporters last week, " but obviously, given that we went back

two years, we obviously have some reason to believe that it occurred with some

frequency

over the last two years. "

 

The initial video didn't provide specific evidence that downer cattle may

have been slaughtered, though it shows animal cruelty.

 

After being approved for slaughter, cattle must walk up a serpentine 90-foot

chute,

on an incline, before being killed, Mr. Magidow said. The chute meanders in part

so that cattle won't suspect what is about to happen to them, he said. The

incline

helps ensure that only cattle able to walk and stand on their own can make it to

the slaughtering line.

 

 

 

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance.

Confucius

[Guest guest]

It doesn't end there either:

 

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/food/2008-02-24-beef-recall-impact-wide\

ns_N.htm