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Public Citizen calls for congressional investigation into ConAgra meat recall (July 26, 2002 -- CropChoice news) -- Public Citizen and the Government Accountability Project today
called for a congressional investigation into the events that led to the recall of 19
million pounds of meat processed by ConAgra at its Greeley, Colo., plant and into the
manner in which the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has implemented a new meat
inspection program.
The groups cited extensive e-mail evidence showing that top USDA officials were told
in February that E. coli-contaminated meat was being produced at the ConAgra plant,
but those officials chose to ignore the warnings. The USDA and ConAgra negotiated a
voluntary recall on June 30 and another, much larger recall last week. The groups
called for the investigation in letters to the chairs of the House and Senate
Agriculture committees and the House Government Reform and Senate Government Affairs
committees. The letter went to Sens. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Joseph Lieberman
(D-Conn.), and Reps. Larry Combest (R-Texas) and Dan Burton (R-Ind.).
"It's time for the Congress to take a good, hard look into USDA food safety policies
and how they are implemented," said Wenonah Hauter, director of Public Citizen's
Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program. "The ConAgra recall is not an
aberration. It is another example of a food safety system that is teetering on the
brink of collapse."
The groups criticized the way the USDA is implementing its Hazard Analysis Critical
Control Point (HACCP) program, in which meat plants are responsible for the
inspection process and for determining where in their production system hazards are
most likely to occur and controlling them. Government inspectors have little
authority to require corrective action when they see a problem.
The e-mail evidence shows that earlier this year, USDA inspectors determined through
documentation and microbial testing that the Greeley plant was the likely source of
contamination found at a much smaller meat processing plant. USDA's top brass not
only ignored the inspectors' recommendations that the agency take action, but also
chastised them for documenting their conclusions.
"Unfortunately, it's a complaint we have heard all too often from our
whistleblowers," said Felicia Nestor, food safety project director for the Government
Accountability Project. "Like a collective recurring nightmare, the inspectors find
problems, call Washington for help and then must stand silently by as administrators
allow problem plants to operate without interruption. Commenters who blame the
inspectors for inaction are really missing the mark on who really wields the
authority at USDA."
The two groups stated in their letter that they were supporters of the HACCP when
first introduced because it was designed to add scientific testing to the food safety
inspection system. In practice, both internal and external examinations of the
implementation of HAACP by USDA have discovered major flaws.
An investigation conducted in 2000 by the USDA's inspector general concluded that the
public's health was being jeopardized by the manner in which HAACP was being
implemented. Just recently, a draft report by Congress' own investigative arm, the
General Accounting Office, severely criticized the USDA for its implementation of
HAACP.
In addition, GAP and Public Citizen have found that the USDA is not enforcing its own
pathogen performance standards for the meat industry and is permitting meat
processors who continually fail those performance standards to continue to operate.
The findings were detailed in a report issued in May called Hamburger Hell: The Flip
Side of USDA's Salmonella Testing Program (available at
http://www.citizen.org/cmep).
"It's not good enough to say that your food safety system is based on science when
you don't use it," said Hauter. | |
