America’s Quiet But Deadly Assassin

Consuming one of the most widespread products served in America just one time is dangerous and several years later you could develop the always-fatal variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Furthermore, many Americans are unaware of the many dangers associated with American beef. Even so, many Americans consume American beef daily thinking that there is no way the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) would distribute beef unless they were a hundred percent positive it was completely safe. Some Americans believe America’s beef is safe due to many lengths the USDA has taken to sterilize the beef industry and enforce strict rules to prevent diseases such as mad cow. But what Americans do not understand is the USDA does not distribute the beef, they just set regulations that many beef distributors do not follow. The USDA is more concerned about keeping the beef producers happy and keeping the multi-billion dollar American beef industry going strong. However, American beef is dangerous to consume on the basis of the facts that surround the beef industry, which range from mad cow disease to corrupted slaughter and handling procedures used by America’s beef producers.

Some people claim that, The United States Department of Agriculture believes it has taken the necessary precautions by regulating and enforcing rules that keeps and will continue to keep American beef safe. The USDA says it will test 201,000 sick and dead cows and 20,000 healthy old cows for Mad Cow Disease, known scientifically as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) (Louthan 2). For the average American these numbers seem astounding and one would feel that the USDA is really doing there part in making sure that mad cow does not enter our food chain. However, the USDA is only trying to fool the average American and their tests are worthless and irrelevant compared to the number of cows in the U.S. The USDA will never be able to find and test that many sick and dead cows and no farmer would ever call the USDA and tell them he has a sick cow. His herd would be quarantined and ruined. The 20,000 healthy old cows that the USDA will test are so small it won’t even show useful information. We kill 30,000,000 cows a year in the US, 20,000 is nothing, that’s 0.0667% of cows their testing. That number is completely meaningless and inadequate. The USDA will do anything to keep from actually testing the cows. The last thing the USDA wants is to find a BSE cow (Louthan 2). What Americans do not realize is the USDA is not searching diligently for cows with BSE, because if they find an infected cow it will cause wide spread panic among consumers and will cost the USDA and beef producers hundreds of millions of dollars. Recently, the USDA was considering a ban on feedings certain parts of dead cows back to living cows. However, according to a USDA document, the agency dismissed the ban because “The cost to the livestock and rendering industries would be substantial” (Sutton 2). Clearly, this government agency has placed the financial interests of the multi-billion dollar livestock industry ahead of public health. Although, a ban on feeding rendered cows back to living cows may not be the answer to the problem. A mandatory ban on this problem has been in affect in Great Britain since 1989 and still some farmers have been feeding cattle rendered parts. So in part, really any ban is totally dependent on individual and industrial compliance (Sutton 2). U.S. agencies continue to rely on foreign imports that may carry disease, while nodding and winking at practices that cause outbreaks of diseases here in America. The regulations that do exist are simply not enforced. Bovine meat and bone meal is labeled “Do Not Feed to Cows.” But a Food and Drug Agency (FDA) investigation found that hundreds of feed makers are violating the law 9 (Rampton 4).

Furthermore, The U.S. has so far found only one mad cow case for the year 2004. The FDA oversees certain segments of the beef-processing industry, with the Department of Agriculture overseeing the remaining segments. The FDA has also issued a mad cow education program for state veterinarians and feed control officers (Snow 8). The USDA also likes to tell themselves and everyone else that mad cow is very rare and all cows infected are easily spotted with noticeable symptoms such as the cow has excessive drooling from the mouth, stumbling and a very crazed attitude and actions, hence the name “mad cow”. On these beliefs, the USDA claims they immediately remove the “mad” cow from its herd and will test the remaing herd for the disease before allowing it to enter the slaughterhouse. The USDA regulates imports of meat products intended for human consumption, inspects cattle before they go to slaughter if they show signs of neurological disease, and regulates imports of live animals (Snow 8). Sometimes when a cow is so overwhelmed by the disease it will collapse onto the ground and go into a paralyzed state. These cows are referred to as “downers”, the USDA told the public that the one cow that was publicly known to have mad cow disease was a downer and again the USDA reinforced their statement saying that it is extremely easy to spot a cow that has been infected and the USDA would continue to find downers and remove them before entering the slaughterhouse.

Unfortunately, Experts say there’s no such thing as an isolated case. The disease is contagious and there are more cases of mad cow in America (MacKenzie 1). The USDA is telling lies to the American people and themselves. Mad cow disease can be detected by noticeable symptoms sometimes, but most of the time the disease remains dormant in the cow and will not show any effects in the cow’s actions. The USDA tricked people in this country. The government said that the cow that was found that had BSE was a downer that is not true. Take it from the man who killed that cow. Dave Louthan states, “The cow was not a downer. I killed that cow and I’m telling you it was a good walker. A big white cow with no BSE symptoms at all.” The USDA hired a panel of international scientists who said, “It’s probable that other infected animals have been imported from Canada and possibly also from Europe.” The USDA chose to ignore this and began a program based on lies and deceit in order to keep the beef sales going without any regard to the health of the consumer (Louthan 2). The reason the USDA has only found one case and is sticking to their argument is because on December 23 when the USDA got the positive test after finding the BSE cow, they stopped all BSE testing. That’s why there has been only one case. The USDA stopped testing to be sure they didn’t find one. The only testing the USDA does periodically is the one mentioned in the above paragraph and that is obviously no more than a feeble attempt. Even when a beef producer wants to make sure his product is completely safe, the USDA will refuse to let someone do so. Just recently the USDA refused to allow a Kansas beef producer to test all of its cattle for mad cow disease, saying such sweeping tests were not scientifically warranted. Lobbying groups for cattle ranchers and slaughterhouses applauded the decision of course, but consumers denounced saying the department was preventing the producer from taking extra steps to ensure it’s product was safe (McNeil 1). The USDA has the power to do such things under the Virus Serum Act of 1913, which says the USDA decides where cattle can be tested and for what (McNeil 2). The USDA has all the power, and will do anything to keep their multi-billion dollar industry from suffering.

Livestock today consume a variety of substances that are quite different from the grass and hay on which they conventionally have been nurtured, including industrial wastes, such as sawdust, woodchips, twigs, and ground-up newspaper, cement dust from kilns and even treated manure and sewage sludge from municipal composting plants (Rampton 4). Nutritional supplements can still be made from cow parts. Although the FDA has asked manufacturers not to use materials from countries where mad cow has been found, the agency has not banned he practice (Snow 2). In 1979, ahead of the BSE crisis, the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution warned against the dangers of feeding dead animals to live ones. And yet, even now, more than twenty years after the warning from the Royal Commission, and more than ten years after the farming industry became aware that the BSE crisis was triggered by feedings dead animals back to live ones, we continue to make cannibals of farm animals (O’Brien 2).

Furthermore, practices such as feeding rendered cows to pigs and to use cow blood in cattle feed is perfectly legal in America. Such practices have been banned in Europe. The substances that livestock consumer, such as industrial wastes, sawdust, and twigs have a purpose. These materials help cut down on costs, dispose of wastes and translate into benefits for the consumer in the form of lower prices for your chicken mcnugget (Rampton 4). Calves are allowed to eat feed sprayed with dried cattle blood. The basis of mad cow and other diseases can be transmitted through blood, and our your cattle are being fed it every day. One loophole that the USDA uses to get out of its own regulation is to use pigs in their process of feeding cattle. Pigs are exempted from the feed band and are allowed to eat meat and bone meal made from dead cows and from sheep infected with scrapie, a disease related to mad cow. These dead pigs can then be turned into protein supplements that be fed to cattle (Snow 4). So in part, the USDA is just going around their own regulations.

Finally, America’s slaughtering procedures and handling techniques are not sanitary and may lead to different diseases such as E-Coli. Although most of the time the controversy comes before the cows are sent to the slaughterhouses whether they are diseased or not, people are not aware of the unsanitary procedures they use at the slaughterhouses that can cause diseases in our beef. Cow brains, along with retina and spinal cord tissue are the most infectious parts of tainted animals, are still sold for human consumption in this country. Techniques used at U.S. slaughterhouses fail to prevent spinal-cord tissue from contaminating equipment and then being mixed with ground meat (Snow 2). Even so, if a healthy cow arrived to a slaughterhouse, the techniques and procedures they use to transport and prepare the meat is very unsanitary and can cause disease. Here are some of the procedures used to get American beef on your table. The first step is to haul the cows from the farm where they were raised to the slaughterhouse. Now this is no nice Sunday drive in the convertible. The animals are hauled over long distances under extreme crowding and harsh temperatures. Animals are so crowded together that the floor is scarcely visible, and where it is visible, it can be seen to be covered with excrement, and the atmosphere is full of dust, and barely any sunlight (O’Brien 1-2). Here is an account from a worker assigned to unloading the pigs: “In the winter, some cows come in all froze to the sides of the trucks. They tie a chain around them and jerk them off the walls of the truck, leave a chunk of hide and flesh behind. They might have a little bit of life left in them, but workers just throw them on the piles of dead ones. They’ll die sooner or later.” Once at the slaughterhouse, some animals are too injured to walk and others simply refuse to go quietly to their death. Here is another account of a slaughterhouse worker how he would handle this situation: “The preferred method of handling a cripple is to beat him to death with a lead pipe before he gets into the chute…If you have a animal that refuses to move, you take a meat hook and hook it into his bunghole (anus)…and a lot of times the meat hook rips out of the bunghole. I’ve seen thighs completely ripped open. I’ve also seen intestines come out” (Hershaft 2). These are just a very small sample of the many things that go on in slaughterhouses. All of the animals are mass killed and do not think they clean up after each kill. Every animal’s blood and guts is spewed everywhere creating a very unsanitary environment. The chance of contracting a disease such as E. coli is there from such awful and unsanitary procedures, but the chances even greater when you have mentally disturbed workers handling your beef. “…With an animal who pisses you off, you don’t just kill it. You…blow the windpipe, make it drown in its own blood, split its nose…I would cut eyes out…and this animal would just scream. One time I…sliced off the end of a hog’s nose. The hog went crazy, so I took a handful of salt brine and ground it into his nose. Now that hog went really nuts…” (Hershaft 3). Now are these the kind of people you trust to handle your meat?

In conclusion, the fact of the matter is that America’s beef is dangerous to consume; USDA officials are more worried about their financial aspects and not the health of their consumers. The USDA sticks to their stories no matter what, and most Americans do not believe the dangers related to meat. Neither did Brianne, a normal girl who consumed a regular beef patty from her local supermarket. Here’s an account from her mother: “After Brianne’s second emergency surgery, surgeons left her open from her sternum to her pubic area to allow swollen organs room to expand and prevent them from ripping her skin…Her heart…bled from every pore. The toxins shut down Brianne’s liver and pancreas. An insulin pump was started. Several times her skin turned black for weeks. She had a brain swell neurologists could not treat…they told use that Brianne was essentially brain-dead” (Hershaft 3-4). But the USDA claim American beef is safe…will you trust them with your life?