Talking about...The Hallmark Incident

“We have suspended operations at 65 slaughter plants. Twelve of those suspensions were for egregious humane animal handling violations. While it’s not a huge number, it is a number that is troublesome.”
(Source: porkalert eMagazine, February 18, 2008)
Kenneth Petersen, USDA assistant administrator, Office of Field Operations, signaling heightened enforcement of humane handling standards at the Animal Handling Conference.
>PS: He said most of the 12 suspensions for animal handling violations were small or very small plants.

"I don’t see any way we could reopen. If the USDA wants payment back, we're dead meat. We're done. There's no way we could pay it all back."
(Source: Wall Street Journal, February 23, 2008)
Anthony Magidow, Hallmark General Manager, in a late Friday telephone interview from the meatpacker's plant in Chino, CA.
>PS: And with the closing of their doors, let’s hope that it also brings any hint of animal abuse in this industry to an absolute end. It’s a door that must be permanently closed.

"Sitting here today, I cannot tell you how many locations the product has gone to. Our focus is identifying the locations and making sure the product is under control."
(Source: Washington Post, February 22, 2008)
Kenneth Peterson of the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service talking about efforts to trace the missing 15 million pounds of recalled beef still in the school lunch program.
>PS: The meat poses ‘little or no hazard’ say the feds? Most parents are going to focus on the ‘little’ part of that statement. Doesn’t that mean there is some risk?
>PPS: After all, what’s the risk of the equivalent of 60 million untraceable quarter pounders floating around out there?
>PPPS: By the numbers:
(1). 50 million pounds went to school foodservice
(2). 20 million pounds already consumed
(3). 15 million pounds on hold at storage facilities
(4). 15 million pounds still missing
>PPPPS: And I know the recalled meat isn’t a food safety issue. It’s more important. It’s a consumer confidence issue.

"Consumers are losing confidence in USDA's ability to ensure the meat they eat is safe."
Caroline Smith DeWaal, food safety director for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, sounding the alarm.
>PS: Maybe she saw the Associated Press survey that showed slightly more than half of the respondents no longer believed their food was safe?
>PPS: An ever rising percentage of Americans no longer believe that old saw, “Our food supply is the safest in the world.” They no longer agree that it’s “among the safest in the world.” So can we stop regurgitating the phrase until we can once again prove it?

The Associated Press finds that the government hasn't stepped up inspections since last year's E. coli scare. In light of the news, do you feel your food is safe?

Yes.........26%
No..........51%
Not sure....23%

Hallmark/Westland: Largest Recall Ever
Meat Consumption Projected to Decline through 2017
(Source: porkalert eMagazine, February 18, 2008)
Awkwardly successive headlines
>PS: E. coli last year, animal welfare this year. Let’s hope against hope that this unintentional headline juxtaposition doesn’t describe a ‘cause and effect.’

"How much longer will we continue to test our luck with weak enforcement of federal food safety regulations?"
(Source: Washington Post, February 18, 2008)
Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, calling on the USDA to get tough with its inspection requirements.
>PS: The USDA issued 20 meat recalls last year, including one of more than 20 million pounds, and slammed Hallmark with the record-setting 143 million pound recall.

“This recall is not an isolated case – it is yet another troubling reminder that our food supply is at risk. Each year, tens of millions of Americans contract food-borne illnesses every year; hundreds of thousands are hospitalized; and thousands die. And the risks are only growing.”
(Source: PRNewsChannel, February 19, 2008)
Hillary Clinton (D-NY) becoming the first presidential candidate to weigh in on the recall.
>PS: It’s an election year. They’ll all hazard an opinion.

"A recall of this staggering scale shows it's bad for animals, bad for consumers and bad for business to have slipshod enforcement and porous laws when it comes to handling animals at slaughter plants."
(Source: The Independent, London, U.K., February 19, 2008)
Wayne Pacelle, HSUS C.E.O., applauding the recall, saying it sent an unmistakable message to other meat processing companies.
>PS: Loud and painfully clear to every bad actor in the business.
>PPS: The writer put the 143 million pound recall in perspective by noting that it was enough meat to feed two hamburgers to every man, woman and child in the U.S.

"Our food safety system should not have to depend on a non-government organization to unearth violations of the law.”
(Source: CNN.com, February 22, 2008)
Wayne Pacelle, HSUS CEO, reacting to Ag Secretary Ed Schafer’s charge that the Humane Society shoulders part of the blame for the abuse at Hallmark.
>PS: I agree. And we shouldn’t have to rely on any organization – government orr non-government – to fritter away valuable time while figuring out what to do with obviously incriminating evidence.
>PPS: Correct me if I’m wrong but wasn’t the tape taken in October and held back throughout the months of November and December before they released it to the S.L.O. D.A.?
>PPS: One annoyed side-line commentator told me that if the HSUS was going to throw this load of well-aged meadow muffins at the USDA, they needed to look at their own hands afterwards. Maybe a little of it got on ‘em?

"The failure of the inspection program to stop the company's egregious behavior is just another sign of how USDA's thousands of meat inspectors are locked into a rigid, antiquated form of inspection that is not filling the bill on either food safety or animal welfare."
(Source: Wall Street Journal, February 19, 2008)
Mike Taylor, former Agriculture Department food-safety official, now a research professor at the George Washington University School of Public Health.
>PS: Sensible observers have been saying it for years. Our inspection system needs a significant overhaul to work in an increasingly complex 21st century. How big of a failure do we need to make the point obvious to even the densest of politicians?

“It was so blatant, so commonplace. It was so in your face. They were pushing animals we felt never should have qualified for human consumption.”
(Source: Kansas City Star, February 19, 2008)
Deep undercover HSUS informant and vegan, interviewed by L.A. Times reporters from an undisclosed location, talking about his experiences as an employee at Hallmark.
>PS: USDA officials have stated there is no evidence that the animals entered the food chain.
>PPS: It’s time to wake up and smell the cattle feces, guys. Those workers were NOT noble men wearing white hats.

"The USDA is very adamant in saying there are inspectors continuously at the facility, and that's absolutely correct. But that can mean a whole range of things, and it doesn't necessarily mean there is anyone watching the slaughter."(Source: Sacramento Bee, February 21, 2008)
Deep Undercover HSUS Informant who infiltrated the Hallmark plant and took the video, talking about his experiences.
>PS: USDA records show that federal inspectors spent an average of 90 minutes a day at the plant on routine checks to ensure animals were handled humanely.

“This recall raises a whole host of issues, and the disclosure of retail outlets involved is certainly one of them. It’s another unfortunate episode of all talk and no action, and certainly something we will discuss with [the Food Safety and Inspection Service] at our hearing next week.”
(Source: CQ Politics, February 20, 2008)
Herb Kohl (D-WI).Senate Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman, who has scheduled a food safety hearing for Feb. 28.
>PS: Consumers Union joined other interest groups in urging Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer for an immediate change in policy that would identify specific retail outlets where recalled meat and poultry products were sold.

"Food safety ought to be of a high enough priority in this nation that we have a single agency that deals with it and not an agency that is responsible for promoting a product, selling a product and then as an afterthought dealing with how our food supply is safe."
(Source: International Herald Tribune, February 20, 2008)
Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) chair of the House subcommittee responsible for the USDA's funding, speaking at a press conference about the Hallmark recall.

“Senator Richard Durbin and Representative Rosa DeLauro have a more ambitious idea: creating a single, powerful agency to oversee all food safety, instead of the current bureaucratic tangle of inspectors, some for vegetables, some for beef and some for imports. Right now the Agriculture Department oversees the safety of the home-grown beef supply (while also promoting the cattle industry) and the Food and Drug Administration monitors the safety of cattle feed. With Americans increasingly — and legitimately — mistrustful of the food they eat, their proposal is worth serious consideration.”
(Source: New York Times, February 21, 2008)
Unsigned editorial urging a complete overhaul of the U.S food inspection system.

And NYT readers responded with these statements
“Of course, the guilty (of animal abuse) should be severely punished--not surprisingly, many are undocumented workers who do as they're told for fear of being fired and/or deported. It's the owners/managers/corporations responsible who should serve the most jail time.” (Eric Mills, California)

“The editorial is well meaning. But before enacting more controls, a complete investigation should be conducted and a careful and thoughtful analysis of corrective actions be made. After all our food safety is still very good.” (TEK, NY)

“If the US Department of Agriculture wants to help US agriculture, then it has to do everything in its power to insure that the nation's home produced food supply is safe. All it takes is several necessary large scale recalls like this one before one or more of our key trading partners and WTO members decide that the US food supply is under inspected, under regulated and under protected and simply ban US agricultural products from their borders.” (Blacklight, New York City)