Risking Food Safety, FDA to allow Slaughterhouses to Self Police

originally posted by: Xtrozero

originally posted by: underwerks

What are the new systems and how are they more efficient?

Well, I'm glad you asked... It's funny I Googled this topic and almost every article had the same statements in them as if 100s of articles were created from one..hmmm

Here is an article from May 2017 that spells it all out as to why this industry needs a major overhaul, and much of the push to do this was not evil Trump, it was two Harvard Law student groups, the first of many from other major universities.

Enjoy the read

So how is removing 40 percent of inspectors and giving the responsibility to untrained company employees going to fix these food inspection problems your article talks about?

That's the perfect anti-fix. Which make sense given the administration it's coming from. Instead of fixing the problems, just get rid of the agencies that the problem exists in..

/facepalm

originally posted by: TonyS
a reply to: JAGStorm

Saw that flour recall and was just amazed. Weird crap going on there and you are right, you would think that with automation things would have gotten better, but instead they are worse.

Dont even think about getting me talking about grocery store chicken. That stuff is just plain gross!

Yea, I had some of that flour!

You mean chicken that is grown here and then shipped to China "for processing" and shipped back.. Yea.. no thanks.
I actually don't think people know what real chicken tastes like anymore. First of all natural chickens should not have size DDD breasts! Or turkey sized legs either.

am I mistaken or is it USDA that heads up the slaughterhouses and meat industry?

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

I'm not entirely sure who's in charge of it now, but it was originally the Bureau of Chemistry. That is now known as the FDA.

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
am I mistaken or is it USDA that heads up the slaughterhouses and meat industry?

Here's a PDF that describes the differences in oversight:

PDF

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
am I mistaken or is it USDA that heads up the slaughterhouses and meat industry?

Broken up into sub sections for different products.

www.fsis.usda.gov... ion-101/slaughter-inspection-101

originally posted by: underwerks

So how is removing 40 percent of inspectors and giving the responsibility to untrained company employees going to fix these food inspection problems your article talks about?

That's the perfect anti-fix. Which make sense given the administration it's coming from. Instead of fixing the problems, just get rid of the agencies that the problem exists in..

/facepalm

I guess you didn't read the article... You want to call it an anti fix and want to blame the administration and neither of them is in the article. lol geez

originally posted by: Xtrozero

originally posted by: underwerks

So how is removing 40 percent of inspectors and giving the responsibility to untrained company employees going to fix these food inspection problems your article talks about?

That's the perfect anti-fix. Which make sense given the administration it's coming from. Instead of fixing the problems, just get rid of the agencies that the problem exists in..

/facepalm

I guess you didn't read the article... You want to call it an anti fix and want to blame the administration and neither of them is in the article. lol geez

I read the entire article. How is that any type of counter argument to what's in the OP?

The article is about the lapses in oversight by the USDA and FDA in inspecting meat. Again, how does less inspectors remedy bad inspections?

a reply to: underwerks

That’s another Trump deregulation scheme.

Along with his total corruption, he is a typical anti-human republican pro-capitalist( let them do what they want do to kill us) politician. I guess this is another drain the swamp scheme. In this case, it 's a Trump filling the swamp with more mud action.

originally posted by: underwerks

The article is about the lapses in oversight by the USDA and FDA in inspecting meat. Again, how does less inspectors remedy bad inspections?

You can read the whole damn book and learn more if you like, but the article is not really about lapses in oversite as much as it is about a bloated bureaucracy that drives out the smaller rancher while using a chainsaw to do surgery. I think what we are seeing is the same evil Trump narrative repeated over and over across many articles that have nothing but cherry-picked and out of context information to fit that narrative, and it works. It seems for some reason you take the articles as completely true with full disclosure while demanding me to prove some point. The fact that this is bi-partisan and leading colleges like Harvard is pushing for it means little to you, and all you see is a reduction of 40% while not having a clue to what that even means.

Maybe the whole inspector part is not even the issue and reduction of 40% is not doing a damn thing to the physical inspection of the beef. Maybe that 40% is the streamlining of a bloated bureaucracy since they did say that ALL slaughterhouses will still have inspectors.

Just.OMG.NO.

I am now even more thankful to those folks who take those undercover video's in meat processing plants/whistleblowers cause they caught just so many violations.

The FDA/ Osha were spread way too thin before, I can imagine those inspectors are having some VERY interesting conversations between themselves about just how screwed we are. Actually we were screwed before, but I can't imagine anything coming out of those processing plants after this legislation that will be fit to consume unless it's by accident.

an oh yeah, only one real butcher here, does beef only off his farm.

originally posted by: underwerks
a reply to: 3NL1GHT3N3D1

I'm wondering who the E.Coli constituency is.

Who really defends this.

I'll have a go at it. I have a decade of experience as a health inspector dealing with food safety and epidemiology. You have no idea what you're talking about, but as long as it seems like it can be placed on Trump it must be true right? These large factory inspectors were already practically on the payroll of the large processors.

Company employees will never be untrained. The idea is preposterous. Most large food processors are far more strict with their QA/QC than a USDA inspector. With company execs going to prison, yes prison, when negligence in food safety is compromised at large scale producers there will be little chance of it happening. Meat is tracked by lots and when contaminated they can point the finger directly at who produced it. USDA is a large clunky agency that is not able to change regulations with any kind of agility.

Small producers are not safer, they just impact a much smaller number of people when they contaminate something. They don't have the money or resources to properly train a safety inspector or team of them all the time. So you depend on a guy who cuts meat for a living to decide what is safe and what isn't. Not that some of them aren't very aware of food safety, but that isn't their primary job.

originally posted by: Edumakated
On the surface, it sounds bad. However, the actual reality could be quite different.

I work in finance/banking and a lot of the regulations we work under are mindless and do nothing to protect consumers. However, it generates a ton of paperwork and adds a lot of unnecessary cost in the system (that consumers ultimately wind up paying).

Everytime someone tries to rollback the regulations you get cries about "predatory lending" etc even though none of the regulations that need to be rolled back actually protect consumers.

The problem is the politicians and consumers don't understand the inside baseball and it is far easier to just accept said regulations instead of trying to explain in soundbites why they don't work.

I wonder if this is a similar situation.

I wouldn't doubt it. The reality is, what you mostly get when government gets involved is the businesses gain liability protections they wouldn't otherwise have, and quality of final product goes down.

Make them fully liable, and provide guidelines for self-regulation, and in most cases, you will get better results at a much lower cost.

Mandate Government Inspectors is the main reason my wife didn't add any meat products to her business making raw organic sauerkraut and other fermented foods. She would have to provide an office inside her kitchen, and pay the cost for a food inspector who could show up any time they felt like it. I think the cost - after the cost of the office - was around $50,000/yr. Ridiculous.

a reply to: Xtrozero

There was actually a pilot program run to test these new lack of regulations. It was found that facilities that were allowed to self-police were guilty of more violations than those operating under the current regulations.

Some things should be deregulated. Safe Food and water to be consumed by the taxpaying public isn't one of them.

the dembs will tear trump a new one with that BS. Politics is about perception!

Don't let your ideology get in the way of your common sense.

originally posted by: olaru12
Some things should be deregulated. Safe Food and water to be consumed by the taxpaying public isn't one of them.

the dembs will tear trump a new one with that BS. Politics is about perception!

Don't let your ideology get in the way of your common sense.

They can tear him all they want...politics isn't about logic or reason. Its about erecting a strawman created from the worst stereotype you can muster, then beating it to death.

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan

originally posted by: olaru12
Some things should be deregulated. Safe Food and water to be consumed by the taxpaying public isn't one of them.

the dembs will tear trump a new one with that BS. Politics is about perception!

Don't let your ideology get in the way of your common sense.

They can tear him all they want...politics isn't about logic or reason. Its about erecting a strawman created from the worst stereotype you can muster, then beating it to death.

What exactly is the strawman regarding Trump deregulating food safety? Seems pretty clear and direct to me.

a reply to: JAGStorm

Thats why I only buy Turkey Chicken!

Well if you can't afford the good grass-fed ethically raised meat, then eat more vegtables! Quoina, rice, beans, tofu, nuts, or even just a plant-based protein shakes are all healthy substitutes for meat that often cost less.

Trump drained the swamp, then put his swamp creatures in. I wouldn't trust meat from any factory. Buy local or eat vegetables

Right now the amount of braurocratic bull is rediculous for the food industry. Local farms can't produce and sell meat without meeting unreasonable standards. Like having a private bathroom only accessably by the food inspector on their property for example. Fine for big business, but kills mom and pops.

Why do you only support big business?

a reply to: underwerks