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The Recent USDA Beef Recall and Why It Should Matter to the Future of American Consumerism

Recently, the government called for the recall of the largest amount of beef in U.S. history. The charges were that the meat may be unfit for human consumption, because some of it had been obtained from diseased cattle.

This news struck a chord with me not simply because the action was taken in response to an animal welfare group's investigations (which seemed strange), but also because much of the meat in question was being sent to public schools for school lunch programs. The U.S.D.A. recalled the meat, but admitted that perhaps much of it had already been consumed. They stated animal cruelty concerns, but since farm animals do not have many legal protections, I am quite skeptical that this is the case. In any case, let's put the welfare aspect aside for now, and focus on food safety issues.

Factory-style farms, run by large, often multi-national corporations, do not operate in the way we might think of a small family farm operating. They have turned the raising and slaughtering of "food" animals into a factory system, designed to utilize space and to produce meat as quickly and efficiently as possible. This obviously can cause health problems for the animals that live in these conditions. This should be a concern to consumers, if for no other reason, than because diseased meat has the potential to pass disease to humans. Still, if efforts by animal welfare groups are aimed at improving conditions for farm animals, this could lead to healthier sources of meat, and in turn contribute to food safety among humans.

In England in the 1980s and 1990s, "Mad Cow Disease", also known as BSE, was slowly becoming a concern to the British government. But rather than incite panic among people, the British government did not take much action until the problem started to get out of hand. The bad news is that BSE has been linked to a human disease when ingested by people, which is known as Variant CJD or Variant Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease. As the U.S. Center for Disease Control has published on their webpage:

Since 1996, evidence has been increasing for a causal relationship between ongoing outbreaks in Europe of a disease in cattle, called bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, or 'mad cow' disease), and vCJD. There is now strong scientific evidence that the agent responsible for the outbreak of prion disease in cows, BSE, is the same agent responsible for the outbreak of vCJD in humans. Both disorders are invariably fatal brain diseases with unusually long incubation periods measured in years, and are caused by an unconventional transmissible agent. However, this evidence also suggests that the risk is low for having vCJD, even after consumption of contaminated product.

So the CDC admits a connection between the diseases, however small they estimate it to be. Anyone who does any research on Variant CJD will agree that the risk may be small, but should still be of concern to consumers and to the agencies governing and regulating how food is produced.

Schools are public institutions, funded by the government, which often give poorer children free or reduced lunches. With so many families and children relying on school lunches for a major part of their food intake, this recent recall should stimulate questions and concerns in the minds of everyone in our communities. These days, our food is often shipped to us from thousands of miles away. We have lost touch with where our food comes from and how it is produced, and we would do well to ask more questions about such an important issue.

Learn more about this author, Lindsey Feldman.
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