Selected Points from NYT Article on Beef Production

This article is unfortunate in that it contains important information, but relies on the shock value of one woman's story and readers' fear of disability to sell the story. This is not to deny that what happened to Ms. Smith is a great injustice, but to point out the way in which the article exploits her suffering. For example, the title on the front webpage reads "Woman's Shattered Life Shows Ground Beef Inspection Flaws," but the title for the article itself is "Trail of E. Coli Shows Flaws in Inspection of Ground Beef." It plays upon stereotypes of the value of life with disability, but never tells us anything meaningful about Ms. Smith other than the events that lead us to pity her.

The article obviously also makes invisible the suffering of the cows, who are reduced to ingredients and "recalled product." I'm sure other bloggers will point to that issue, so for now I want to discuss what is contained in the story itself.

The middle content of the article is worth reading. Here are some of the major points:

1. The system is designed to prevent the recall of contaminated meat.

Unwritten agreements between some companies appear to stand in the way of ingredient testing. Many big slaughterhouses will sell only to grinders who agree not to test their shipments for E. coli, according to officials at two large grinding companies. Slaughterhouses fear that one grinder’s discovery of E. coli will set off a recall of ingredients they sold to others.

2. The expectation that consumers must protect themselves through proper kitchen sanitation sets them up to fail, locating the "responsibility" for sickness with the individual, rather than the source.

Food scientists have registered increasing concern about the virulence of this pathogen since only a few stray cells can make someone sick, and they warn that federal guidance to cook meat thoroughly and to wash up afterward is not sufficient. A test by The Times found that the safe handling instructions are not enough to prevent the bacteria from spreading in the kitchen.

But the pathogen is so powerful that her illness could have started with just a few cells left on a counter. “In a warm kitchen, E. coli cells will double every 45 minutes,” said Dr. Mansour Samadpour, a microbiologist who runs IEH Laboratories in Seattle, one of the meat industry’s largest testing firms.

3. Even the minimal federal regulations are not enforced and function to cover over food safety problems as "trade secrets."

While the Department of Agriculture has inspectors posted in plants and has access to production records, it also guards those secrets. Federal records released by the department through the Freedom of Information Act blacked out details of Cargill’s grinding operation that could be learned only through copies of the documents obtained from other sources. Those documents illustrate the restrained approach to enforcement by a department whose missions include ensuring meat safety and promoting agriculture markets.

In the weeks before Ms. Smith’s patty was made, federal inspectors had repeatedly found that Cargill was violating its own safety procedures in handling ground beef, but they imposed no fines or sanctions, records show. After the outbreak, the department threatened to withhold the seal of approval that declares “U.S. Inspected and Passed by the Department of Agriculture.”

The food safety officer at American Foodservice, which grinds 365 million pounds of hamburger a year, said it stopped testing trimmings a decade ago because of resistance from slaughterhouses. “They would not sell to us,” said Timothy P. Biela, the officer. “If I test and it’s positive, I put them in a regulatory situation. One, I have to tell the government, and two, the government will trace it back to them. So we don’t do that.”

In examining Cargill, investigators discovered that their own inspectors had lodged complaints about unsanitary conditions at the plant in the weeks before the outbreak, but that they had failed to set off any alarms within the department. Inspectors had found “large amounts of patties on the floor,” grinders that were gnarly with old bits of meat, and a worker who routinely dumped inedible meat on the floor close to a production line, records show.

4. Farm animal abuse endangers consumers, not just the animals themselves.

As with other slaughterhouses, the potential for contamination is present every step of the way, according to workers and federal inspectors. The cattle often arrive with smears of feedlot feces that harbor the E. coli pathogen, and the hide must be removed carefully to keep it off the meat.

5. There are other prices we pay for cheap meat (including risking the safety of our children).

With seven million pounds produced each week, the company’s product is widely used in hamburger meat sold by grocers and fast-food restaurants and served in the federal school lunch program. Ten percent of Ms. Smith’s burger came from Beef Products, which charged Cargill about $1.20 per pound, or 20 cents less than the lean trimmings in the burger, billing records show.