Dr. Raymond has spoken: the U.S. Department of Agriculture needs neither videocameras nor more inspectors to police slaughterhouses after the country’s largest beef recall earlier this year.

Everything is just fine.

Raymond, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s undersecretary for food safety (right, on the left, at Marler’s food safety bash last week), told a House subcommittee that USDA has enough food inspectors after hiring more than 190 last year and videotaping meat plant operations would be costly and practically difficult to implement, adding, "It’s not as simple as a camera," and that the agency was "not stretched too thin."

Raymond’s response angered House members, who said the recall of beef slaughtered in the Hallmark/Westland plant in Chino, Calif., showed a need for improvements.

The beef was recalled after the Humane Society of the United States released an undercover video showing the mistreatment of sick cows at the Westland/Hallmark plant in Chino, Calif.

As I’ve said before, USDA may need to adopt some new inspection and investigative techniques if the HSUS can so easily document such grotesquely poor treatment of animals.

And unlike 12th century France, USDA has access to the same video technology that a single undercover worker — not the five USDA inspectors on-site — was able to use to bring down a large corporation. Producers and processors who say their food is safe should be able to prove it. Producers and processors who say they treat animals humanely should be able to prove it.