Tag Archives: Downers

USDA to ban all downers from meat supply

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U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer has just announced plans to ban all downers from the meat supply.

Parts of his statement are below:

One day after I was sworn in as Secretary of Agriculture, I learned of the illegal acts of inhumane handling that took place at the Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Company in Chino, California. I immediately called upon the Office of the Inspector General and the Food Safety and Inspection Service to determine how this happened and what could be done in the future to ensure that animals are treated humanely.

The 60-day enhanced surveillance period concluded on May 6 and while we are still analyzing those results, today I am announcing that USDA will begin working on a proposed rule to prohibit the slaughter of all disabled non-ambulatory cattle, also know as "downer cattle." In other words, I am calling for the end of the exceptions in the so called "downer rule."

Last year, of the nearly 34 million cattle that were slaughtered, under 1,000 cattle that were re-inspected were actually approved by the veterinarian for slaughter. This represents less than 0.003 percent of cattle slaughtered annually. As you can see, this number is minimal.

The current rule, which focuses on cattle that went down after they have already passed pre-slaughter inspection, has been challenging to communicate and has, at times, been confusing to consumers.

To maintain consumer confidence in the food supply, eliminate further misunderstanding of the rule and, ultimately, to make a positive impact on the humane handling of cattle, I believe it is sound policy to simplify this matter by initiating a complete ban on the slaughter of downer cattle that go down after initial inspection.

FSIS will draft a proposed rule to remove the exception that allows certain injured cattle to proceed to slaughter. This action is expected to provide additional efficiencies to food safety inspection by removing the step that requires inspection workforce to determine when non-ambulatory cattle are safe to slaughter.

The decision to ban all non-ambulatory cattle from slaughter will positively impact the humane handling of cattle by reducing the incentive to send marginally weakened cattle to market.

Cattle producers, transporters and slaughter establishments alike will be encouraged to enhance humane handling practices, as there will no longer be any market for cattle that are too weak to rise or walk on their own.

Animal welfare shouldn’t be a downer.

Cattle abuse wasn’t rare occurrence

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Julie Schmit reports in USA Today Tuesday that the abuse of non-ambulatory cattle at a California slaughterhouse has renewed calls for a ban on the slaughter of such animals, and newly released government records show such mishandling in past years was more than a rare occurrence.

The Animal Welfare Institute, an animal-protection group, said that more than 10% of the humane-slaughter violations issued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for the 18 months ended March 2004 detailed improper treatment of animals that couldn’t walk — mostly cattle.

The finding, drawn from USDA records the institute recently received in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, is included in a report to be released Tuesday on humane-slaughter violations. It comes as the USDA steps up checks on conditions at the nation’s 900 slaughterhouses following abuses at Westland/Hallmark Meat, now at the heart of the biggest beef recall ever.

An undercover animal-rights worker at the plant used a video camera to document workers moving downed cows with forklifts, sticking them repeatedly with electric prods and spraying water down their noses to make them stand, allegedly to get them to slaughter (below).

The USDA called the actions "egregious violations of humane-handling regulations." American Meat Institute (AMI) spokeswoman Janet Riley called them an "anomaly."

But the USDA records obtained by the Animal Welfare Institute describe 501 humane-handling or slaughter violations that occurred at other slaughter plants. At one plant, a downed cow was pushed 15 feet with a forklift. Other companies were cited for dragging downed but conscious animals, letting downed cattle be trampled and stood on by others and, in one case, using "excessive force" with a rope and an electric prod to get a downed cow to stand, the enforcement records say.

As I wrote in Feb., the city leaders in Toulouse, France, figured out by 1184 that selling the meat of sick animals was forbidden unless the buyer was warned.

In the Middle Ages, violation of regulations ranged from fines to flogging to banishment._Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Co. will be flogged in the media and the two-year recall should effectively banish the company.

But 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.

 

Undercover live — from Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Co.

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The undercover investigator behind the biggest beef recall in U.S. history — who will admit he is a vegan — told the Los Angeles Times in a telephone interview Monday, that his six weeks at a Chino slaughterhouse that supplied meat to school lunch programs and supermarkets throughout the U.S. provided an abundance of evidence of abuse.

"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."

The investigator said most of the animals slaughtered at Hallmark/Westland were former dairy cattle — many, he added, already weak and emaciated when they were trucked in.

On his first day, a cow collapsed on its way to the slaughter box, and two workers immediately jumped into the chute. One grabbed the cow by its tail and the other shocked it with electrical prods. When that failed, workers killed the cow on the spot, hooked a chain around the animal’s neck and dragged it all the way into the slaughter box on its knees.

The undercover said he saw weaker animals being prodded upright, or having water shot into their nostrils before shakily walking to slaughter. Some downer cows were hauled with chains. He said a supervisor would order his men to "get them up! Get them up!" when cows seemed too sick to walk.

Animal welfare shouldn’t be a downer

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In 1184, city leaders in Toulouse, France, introduced some of the first documented measures to oversee the sale of meat: profit for butchers was limited to eight per cent; the partnership between two butchers was forbidden; and, selling the meat of sick animals was forbidden unless the buyer was warned.

By 1394, the Toulouse charter on butchering contained 60 articles, 19 of which were devoted to health and safety.

As outlined by Madeleine Ferrières, a professor of social history at the University of Avignon, in her 2002 book, Sacred Cow, Mad Cow: A History of Food Fears, the goal of regulations at butcher shops — the forerunners of today’s slaughterhouse — was to safeguard consumers and increase tax revenues. Animals from the surrounding countryside were consolidated at a single spot — the evolving slaughterhouse, originally inside city walls — so taxes could be more easily gathered, and so animals could be physically examined for signs of disease.

It’s no different today: slaughterhouses are common collection points to examine animals for signs of disease and to collect various levies. And like medieval times, one of the most basic rules is animals that cannot walk are forbidden from entering (the slaughterhouse or city).

So when Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Co., a Chino, Calif., establishment that is (was) the second-largest provider of beef to the U.S. school lunch program was caught breaking the rules, the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Sunday announced the firm was voluntarily recalling two-years worth of production, or approximately 143 million pounds of raw and frozen beef products. USDA had determined the meat to be unfit for human food because the cattle did not receive complete and proper inspection.

But it wasn’t the inspectors and veterinarians who work for USDA, those who are paid to be present in the slaughterhouse to inspect and verify compliance, who busted the case. It was an undercover employee of the Humane Society of the United States who obtained footage which prompted USDA to act (the original video is available at:
https://community.hsus.org/campaign/CA_2008_investigation?qp_source=gaba89).

The slaughterhouse was found using a variety of distasteful techniques such as electric prods, nudging with a forklift and waterboarding, to get non-ambulatory animals to walk one last time, and just in time for the USDA-type to notice.

A non-ambulatory animal is also called a downer.

Federal regulations forbid downed cattle from entering the food supply because they may have higher levels of E. coli, salmonella or mad cow disease.

A 2004 review of meat inspection in Canada found that cattle become non-ambulatory at all ages and for a variety of reasons, and that banning these animals from the food chain could encourage illegal slaughter and the sale of uninspected meat processed under unhygienic conditions.

"However," the report stated, "most downer animals are dairy cows that are at the end of their productive lives and are being sent for slaughter to salvage what little value remains. The quality of their meat is low and although it cannot be said that this meat is unsafe, there is a heightened risk."
That’s why they’re supposed to be kept out of the food supply.

In the Middle Ages, violation of regulations ranged from fines to flogging to banishment.
Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Co. will be flogged in the media and the two-year recall should effectively banish the company.

But unlike 12th century France, USDA has access to the same video technology that a single undercover worker 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.