 |
|
Healthy Lifestyle |
 |
|
|
|
||||||
 |
| Back to Discussion Board | EarthSave Site |
|
From: Tony (1cust202.tnt35.lax3.da.uu.net)
Below is a press release from PBS's "Frontline": Set your VCRs! The -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Modern Meat The hamburger has become our national food: Americans eat more meat Yet despite new federal safety regulations, more than 100 million How much does the average American know about the beef they're eating? FRONTLINE explores these and other questions in "Modern Meat," airing "I think what the [meat] industry is saying is that they don't want to "Modern Meat" takes viewers inside the U.S. meat industry, beginning at But such modern efficiency may pose potential health risks. In "Modern Meat," FRONTLINE speaks with numerous scientists and "Cows tend to produce feces [and] feces is primarily bacteria," says "In the larger feedlots," he adds, "there's a greater chance for the Dr. Robert Tauxe is also concerned. "The new highly industrialized way Gone are the days, Tauxe says, when a hamburger patty contained the "If we take meat from a thousand different animals and grind that What's more, there is increasing evidence that the modern meat The consequences of bacterial contamination can be deadly. In 1993, For decades, industry experts say, meat inspectors had practiced the The proposed testing for salmonella, however, was not embraced by the It's a charge that the American Meat Institute's J. Patrick Boyle The USDA resisted industry pressure, and in 1996 the U.S. meat industry Each year, the CDC tracks numerous cases of food poisoning, while the In addition, a recent court ruling threatens to limit the government's Carol Tucker Foreman, head of food safety at the Consumer Federation of "Those hot dogs were shipped everywhere," Foreman says. "And thousands Following the broadcast, visit FRONTLINE's Web site at Statistics and articles on the industrialization of the U.S. meat Background reports from inside the slaughterhouse, readings and Facts and advice for the consumer about choosing meat and eating Extended interviews, chronologies and a video report. FRONTLINE is produced by WGBH Boston and is broadcast nationwide on Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers. FRONTLINE is closed-captioned for deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers. The executive producer for FRONTLINE is David Fanning. Press contacts (DawnWatch is an animal advocacy media watch that looks at animal
Subject: PBS Frontline, Thursday, April 18 - "Modern Meat"
Date: April 17, 2002 at 1:00 am PST
show takes comments at:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/contact/
Thursday, April 18, at 9pm, 60 minutes
It's as American as apple pie and vastly more popular.
than any other people in the world, with the average person devouring
three hamburgers a week. And with more meat available than ever before,
today's beef costs 30 percent less than it did in 1970, making it that
much more attractive to consumers looking for a quick, cheap meal.
pounds of meat has been recalled since 1998 due to suspected bacterial
contamination. And just last summer, the nation's largest meat processor had
to recall 500,000 pounds of beef contaminated with e.coli bacteria from
seventeen states.
Have dramatic changes in the U.S. meat industry compromised the overall
safety of American beef? And are the new federal regulations enough to
guarantee the safety of the meat we eat?
Thursday, April 18, at 9 P.M. on PBS (check local listings). Through
interviews with current and former U.S. Department of Agriculture
officials, meat inspectors, food safety experts, and industry representatives,
the one-hour documentary reveals how today's highly-industrialized meat
business has fundamentally changed the composition of the typical
American burger, causing some to fear the spread of serious -- and even
deadly -- bacteria. The program also explores the powerful U.S. meat
industry's attempts to resist certain government regulations aimed at
preventing contaminated meat from ending up in supermarkets and fast food
chains across America.
be accountable for the product that they're selling," says Eric
Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation, an expose of the meat and fast food
industry. "This industry has fought against food safety inspection for a
hundred years."
the cattle ranch and then moving on to the "feedlot" -- a huge
industrial holding pen where as many as 100,000 cattle are held together until
they are fat enough to be slaughtered. Then the carcasses make their
way down a Detroit-style assembly line -- or "dis-assembly line," as one
industry insider quips -- where modern advances have enabled some meat
companies to strip as many as 400 carcasses an hour -- nearly three
times as many as in 1970.
industry observers who raise serious concerns about today's meat production
system. With large numbers of animals being raised together in huge
feedlots covered with feces, they say, it's easy for bacteria to spread from
one animal to another.
Glen Morris, a microbiologist at the University of Maryland and a former
USDA official "When those bacteria are spread around, there's ample
opportunity for bacteria to be spread from one cow to the next.
passage of microorganisms back and forth. All of that contributes to the
spread of microorganisms like e. coli."
we produce meat has opened up new ecological homes for a number of
bacteria," says Tauxe, head of the Centers for Disease Control's Foodborne
Illness Section.
meat from a single cow; with enormous numbers of cattle now being herded,
fattened, slaughtered, and ground up together, it's virtually
impossible to determine how many cows contribute to a single burger.
together," he says, "we're pooling bacteria from a thousand different
animals as well."
industry's widespread use of antibiotics to promote growth and keep livestock
healthy may result in the development of bacteria strains that are
resistant to antibiotic treatment.
Jack in the Box hamburgers contaminated with a deadly strain of e. coli
killed four children and injured 750, causing the government to seek a
more scientific system for inspecting meat.
"poke and sniff" method of visually inspecting carcasses for signs of
disease. Following the Jack in the Box outbreak, the government proposed
implementing a new inspection system -- known as "HACCP" (Hazard
Analysis and Critical Control Points) -- that would require microbial testing
to detect the presence of invisible -- yet harmful -- bacteria such as
e. coli and salmonella.
meat industry. In "Modern Meat," FRONTLINE speaks with industry insiders
and government officials who say the powerful U.S. food lobby -- which
has contributed heavily to key Capitol Hill lawmakers -- aggressively
fought including this testing as part of the new regulations.
denies. "It's not the beef industry that's fighting standards that are
meaningful, that improve the wholesomeness of the product," Boyle tells
FRONTLINE. "The beef industry has reservations about unscientific standards
that have no relation to the safety of our products."
began making the transition to the new inspection system. Since then,
the USDA has reported a marked drop in salmonella contamination of
ground beef, while the CDC has also begun to see a drop in some food borne
illnesses. Yet the American consumer still faces serious risks.
USDA maintains a running list of tainted meat recalls. The growth in
global trade, meanwhile, has increased the risk of diseased cattle or beef
coming into the country and decimating the U.S. livestock population.
Last year, for example, USDA Inspector General Roger Viadero discovered
that 650,000 pounds of foreign meat from a country embargoed because of
foot and mouth disease found its way into America's heartland.
enforcement of its new food safety regulations. In "Modern Meat,"
FRONTLINE examines a lawsuit filed by Texas meat grinding company Supreme
Beef against the U.S. Department of Agriculture. When the USDA
effectively shut down the company after it failed bacterial contamination tests
three times -- once after nearly 50 percent of its meat was found to be
contaminated with salmonella -- the company sued. Supported in its
lawsuit by the National Meat Association, Supreme Beef charged that the
government didn't have the right to shut down its operations simply
because it failed to meet the USDA salmonella standards. Last month, a
federal appeals court ruled in favor of the meat industry, prompting concern
from some industry observers.
America and a former USDA official, believes the modern meat production
and distribution system leaves consumers vulnerable to a widespread
outbreak of bacterial contamination. She points to a case in which sixteen
deaths and five stillbirths were connected to Ball Park Franks found to
be contaminated with deadly listeria.
and thousands of them were made every day. So the potential for one
mistake rippling out and causing thousands of deaths is there."
www.pbs.org/frontline for more on this report, including:
industry;
interviews on current conditions, and the movement for humane slaughter;
safely;
"Modern Meat" is a FRONTLINE co-production with Cam Bay Productions.
The producer and writer is Doug Hamilton. The co-producer is Steve
Johnson. The senior producer for FRONTLINE is Sharon Tiller.
PBS.
National sponsorship for FRONTLINE is provided by EarthLink® and NPR®.
for FRONTLINE:
Erin Martin Kane [erin_martin_kane@wgbh.org]
Chris Kelly [chris_kelly@wgbh.org]
(617) 300-3500
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
issues in the media and facilitates one-click responses to the relevant
media outlets. You can learn more about it at www.DawnWatch.com. To
subscribe to DawnWatch, email KarenDawn@DawnWatch.com and tell me you'd like
to receive alerts. If at any time you find DawnWatch is not for you,
just let me know via email and I'll take you off the subscriber list
immediately. If you forward or reprint DawnWatch alerts, please do so
unedited and include this tag line.)
|
|