Meatpacking Maverick

[Guest guest]

http://www.motherjones.com/news/hellraiser/2003/11/ma_573_01.html

 

Meatpacking Maverick

Montana meatpacker John Munsell's against-the-odds struggle for improved food

safety.

Michael Scherer

November/December 2003 Issue

Bad Meat made an activist out of John Munsell. Before the tainted beef arrived

-- USDA-approved and vacuum-sealed -- at Montana Quality Foods, Munsell's

family-run packing plant, this die-hard Republican had no reason to doubt the

integrity of the food-safety system. But that changed after the meat he ground

for hamburger tested positive for E. coli 0157:H7, a potentially deadly pathogen

found in cattle feces that sickens thousands every year.

 

Instead of tracking the contaminated meat back to its source, the USDA launched

an investigation of Munsell's own operation in Miles City, Montana. Never mind

that the local federal inspector had seen the beef go straight from the package

into a clean grinder -- a USDA spokesman called that testimony " hearsay. " By

February 2002, three more tests of meat Munsell was grinding straight from the

package came back positive in USDA tests for E. coli. This time, as he would

later testify in a government hearing, he had paperwork documenting that the

beef came from a single source: ConAgra's massive Greeley, Colorado, facility,

which kills as many cows in three hours as Montana Quality Foods handles in a

year.

 

Munsell fired off an angry email to the district USDA manager, warning of a

potential public-health emergency, and adding that if no one tracked down the

rest of the bad meat, " both of us should share a cell in Alcatraz. " The agency

moved immediately and aggressively -- not to recall meat from Greeley, but to

shut down Munsell's grinding operation, a punishment that lasted four months.

 

Despite Munsell's continued whistleblowing -- to Senator Conrad Burns (R-Mont.),

national cattle associations, and his fellow meat processors -- the USDA failed

to address the alleged contamination at ConAgra's Greeley plant. Then, in July

2002, Munsell's worst fears came true. E. coli-tainted burger from Greeley

killed an Ohio woman and sickened at least 35 others. ConAgra then recalled 19

million pounds of beef, one of the largest recalls in history. (As much as 80

percent of the meat had already been consumed.)

 

" I want the world to know what the real policies are, " says Munsell, driving

through Miles City, a ranching town on Montana's eastern plain where the casinos

compete with saddle shops on Main Street and the men don't take their hats off

for much. " The real policies imperil the consumer, " he says. " The USDA doesn't

want that out. "

 

Lanky, with thinning sandy hair, the 57-year-old Munsell speaks in a measured

voice that barely hints at the fury he feels. Though his battle with the USDA

has crippled his business, Munsell is now on the offensive. After months of

lobbying, he persuaded Senator Burns to convene a congressional hearing in

Billings last December, where Munsell testified on the failings of USDA

inspections. Munsell also convinced the Government Accountability Project (GAP)

-- the nation's leading whistleblower organization -- to investigate the USDA's

handling of his case. In July 2003, GAP released a major report titled

" Shielding the Giant: USDA's 'Don't Look, Don't Know' Policy for Beef

Inspection. " " The ConAgra-Munsell scandal, " it concluded, " perpetuates a

long-standing USDA pattern to blame the messenger and scapegoat the victims,

rather than stand behind its seal of wholesomeness. "

 

Why would the USDA willfully ignore a whistleblower and stand by as

feces-tainted meat entered grocery stores? Two decades of federal reforms have

left more and more regulation in the hands of the meat industry itself.

" Agribusiness runs the show " at the USDA, says Tony Corbo, a food-safety

lobbyist with the watchdog group Public Citizen.

 

In 1998 the USDA stopped testing for E. coli at the company's Greeley facility,

saying internal safeguards were sufficient. While tests continued at small

plants like Munsell's, the USDA allowed big packers to conduct their own

in-house tests. Indeed, according to the congressional investigation of the

ConAgra recall initiated by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), 33 in-house tests

conducted at ConAgra's Greeley facility in the month before the recall came back

positive for E. coli contamination. ConAgra failed to alert the USDA. In a

scathing letter to Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman this spring, Waxman wrote

that the USDA's policy of industry self-regulation " appears grossly inadequate

to protect the public health. "

 

Munsell has steadily been winning allies in his fight for reform. " This guy is

the small businessman. He's done everything right, " says Brad Keena, a spokesman

for Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.), who has followed Munsell's case closely. " But

because he's the middleman, his reputation gets ground into the problem of the

larger company. " (Swift & Co., which boughtConAgra's meatpacking operations last

year, insists there is no conclusive evidence that the Greeley plant was

responsible for Munsell's bad meat.)

 

To this day, the USDA maintains that it followed all of its own policies in

regard to ConAgra and boasts of new safeguards that were put into place after

the recall. USDA spokesman Steve Cohen also argues that Munsell never proved the

source of the initial E. coli contamination and suggests that he " got a good

deal " on the ConAgra meat. Munsell isn't rattled by such accusations. " He is

simply grasping at straws, " he says.

 

The negative publicity from the USDA's shutdown of his plant has proved fatal to

business. This summer, Munsell put his operation up for sale, foretelling the

end of a business that his father -- who, at the age of 84, still serves

breakfast to the crew -- founded in 1946. But Munsell has no regrets. What

haunts him is not his decision to go public, he says, but the fact that he

almost decided to stay quiet, just to protect his own livelihood. " You know what

it comes down to? " says the third-generation meatpacker, his steady composure

beginning to crack. " My grandkids. The USDA could care less about the health of

my grandkids. "

 

 

.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

..

This article has been made possible by the Foundation for National Progress, the

Investigative Fund of Mother Jones, and gifts from generous readers like you.

© 2003 The Foundation for National Progress

 

 

 

 

NEW WEB MESSAGE BOARDS - JOIN HERE.

Alternative Medicine Message Boards.Info

http://alternative-medicine-message-boards.info

 

 

 

Protect your identity with Mail AddressGuard