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Ranchers.net

Published on Thursday, November 20, 2008

Guest Opinion: USDA deregulation penalizes small meat plants, imperils public health
By JOHN MUNSELL

The banking and airline industries have not fared well in spite of the fact they have been deregulated. The next deregulated industry that will hit the front page is the meat industry.

The largest meat processors have been set free to operate under greatly diminished U.S. Department of Agriculture oversight, with full endorsement by the agency. In 1995, USDA mandated that all federal plants develop their own Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point Plans because the agency, by its own public admission, would resort to a "hands-off" role under this allegedly "science-based" methodology. USDA also publicly stated that under HACCP, the industry would have to police itself; the agency would no longer police the industry. Furthermore, USDA stated that it would disband its previous command-and-control authority.

The industry's largest plants introduced HACCP on Jan. 26, 1998. USDA immediately demurred to a hands-off role at these big packers.

In stark contrast, the department has tremendously increased its scrutiny at small plants. These plants lack the political clout and financial wherewithal to engage the agency in protracted litigation when faced with fabricated charges from an agency that chooses to fully utilize police powers, but only at small plants.


Focused on paperwork
Interestingly, increased scrutiny at small plants is not focused on production lines, but almost exclusively on paper flow, which is frequently totally divorced from food safety. Of course, at the biggest plants no major problems are even detected with paper flow. Initially justified as a food safety measure or "pathogen chase," HACCP has degenerated into a paper chase, but, again, only at the small plants.

The high number of E. coli recalls and outbreaks in 2007 and 2008 reveal that the "scientific basis" on which HACCP was built actually emanates from political science, not biological science. The large plants have political clout; small plants do not.


Sending liability downstream
The method by which USDA defines E. coli as an adulterant reveals the biased and unscientific basis of current meat noninspection. If E. coli is found in ground beef or boneless trimmings destined for grinding, the bacteria is declared to be an adulterant and USDA declares the meat to be adulterated. However, if E. coli is a surface contaminant on intact pieces of meat (at the large slaughter plants) from which steaks and roasts are later processed at secondary processing plants, the intact meat is not considered to be adulterated, but is wholesome and labeled "USDA Inspected and Passed". So, when downstream local meat markets or small processing plants purchase vacuum-packed intact beef cuts that are surface-contaminated with E. coli from their large slaughter plant sources, processes the meat and E. coli bacteria are detected in the final product, then the downstream secondary processor is fully liable for the presence of the bacteria.

"Science-based" deregulation allows all liability to go downstream with the previously adulterated meat.

I have always been a Reagan-era, deregulated, hands-off junkie. I owned a USDA-inspected meat packing plant for 34 years and was initially swept up in HACCP's deregulated euphoria mandated by USDA. I only recognized reality after disaster reared its ugly head. HACCP is an unmitigated disaster, guaranteed to serve up numerous future outbreaks and recalls. While USDA and its closest allies, the big packers, trump science with political science, public health continues to be imperiled, victimized small plants continue to close their doors, and families are devastated while watching their loved ones suffer bloody diarrhea and incessant vomiting. Not a pretty sight, but neither is the HACCP hoax.

John Munsell lives in Miles City.

http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2008/11/20/opinion/guest/40-fdaperil.txt
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