don't forget the modern meat frontline on next week..

[Guest guest]

Thursday, April 18, at 9pm, 60 minutes

 

 

It's as American as apple pie and vastly more popular.

 

The hamburger has become our national food: Americans eat more meat 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.

 

Yet despite new federal safety regulations, more than 100 million 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.

 

How much does the average American know about the beef they're eating?

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?

 

FRONTLINE explores these and other questions in " Modern Meat, " airing

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.

 

" I think what the [meat] industry is saying is that they don't want to

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. "

 

" Modern Meat " takes viewers inside the U.S. meat industry, beginning at

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.

 

But such modern efficiency may pose potential health risks.

 

In " Modern Meat, " FRONTLINE speaks with numerous scientists and 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.

 

" Cows tend to produce feces [and] feces is primarily bacteria, " says

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.

 

" In the larger feedlots, " he adds, " there's a greater chance for the

passage of microorganisms back and forth. All of that contributes to the

spread of microorganisms like e. coli. "

 

Dr. Robert Tauxe is also concerned. " The new highly industrialized way

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.

 

Gone are the days, Tauxe says, when a hamburger patty contained the 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.

 

" If we take meat from a thousand different animals and grind that

together, " he says, " we're pooling bacteria from a thousand different

animals as well. "

 

What's more, there is increasing evidence that the modern meat

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.

 

The consequences of bacterial contamination can be deadly. In 1993, 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.

 

For decades, industry experts say, meat inspectors had practiced the

" 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.

 

The proposed testing for salmonella, however, was not embraced by the

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.

 

It's a charge that the American Meat Institute's J. Patrick Boyle

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. "

 

The USDA resisted industry pressure, and in 1996 the U.S. meat industry

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.

 

Each year, the CDC tracks numerous cases of food poisoning, while the

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.

 

In addition, a recent court ruling threatens to limit the government's

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.

 

Carol Tucker Foreman, head of food safety at the Consumer Federation of

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.

 

" Those hot dogs were shipped everywhere, " Foreman says. " And thousands

and thousands of them were made every day. So the potential for one

mistake rippling out and causing thousands of deaths is there. "

 

Following the broadcast, visit FRONTLINE's Web site at

www.pbs.org/frontline for more on this report, including:

 

Statistics and articles on the industrialization of the U.S. meat

industry;

 

Background reports from inside the slaughterhouse, readings and

interviews on current conditions, and the movement for humane slaughter;

 

Facts and advice for the consumer about choosing meat and eating safely;

 

Extended interviews, chronologies and a video report.

" 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.

 

FRONTLINE is produced by WGBH Boston and is broadcast nationwide on PBS.

 

Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers.

National sponsorship for FRONTLINE is provided by EarthLink® and NPR®.

 

FRONTLINE is closed-captioned for deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers.

 

The executive producer for FRONTLINE is David Fanning. Press contacts

for FRONTLINE:

Erin Martin Kane [erin_martin_kane]

Chris Kelly [chris_kelly]

(617) 300-3500

 

FRONTLINE XX/April 2002