- Note - Years ago, when this 'technology' was first announced
and put on the market to 'solve'
- the mad cow 'spinal cord problem' during slaughter, I
warned vigorously that it could not be
- expected to operate 'safely' in terms of removing ALL
spinal cord tissue. It is long past time
- for this equipment and process to come under suspicion.
-ed
-
- A slaughterhouse machine that blasts the last bits of
flesh off cattle carcasses already relieved of their more recognizable
cuts of beef is coming under increased scrutiny as the discovery of mad
cow disease in Washington raises questions about the safety of the nation's
food supply.
-
- The machinery, known as Advanced Meat Recovery, sometimes
also strips off spinal cord tissue, which can slip into the food supply
unknown to the consumer.
-
- A cow's central nervous system, including the brain and
spinal cord, are the most likely to contain the misshapen proteins that
most scientists believe cause mad cow disease.
-
- Those pulpy pieces of tissue fill out any number of processed
foods, including hamburgers, hot dogs, sausage and pizza toppings. They're
also reduced down to add flavoring to beef bouillon and stock.
-
- Consumer groups have been warning about the potential
dangers looming in some of America's favorite foods since the outbreak
of mad cow disease in England and Europe, where AMR has since been banned,
said Caroline Smith DeWaal, food safety director for the Center for Science
in the Public Interest.
-
- "We warned the government many times that this is
a gaping hole in the system," said Smith DeWaal. "Since 1997
they said you don't need to worry about this because we don't have mad
cow disease here."
-
- Now the discovery of a Holstein cow with the brain-wasting
disease in Washington may force government regulators to take a closer
look at the system.
-
- "The future of AMR is very much in doubt and I would
be very surprised if the industry and the government didn't move very rapidly
to prohibit (this machinery)," said Steve Kay, publisher of Cattle
Buyers Weekly, a newsletter about the beef industry published in Petaluma,
Calif.
-
- Before the carcass is put through the mechanical system,
the spinal cord is removed and another machine sucks the remaining cord
and fluid out of the cavity, according to Rosemary Mucklow, executive director
of the National Meat Association.
-
- "The spinal cord is removed on the kill floor,"
said Mucklow. "It might retain a little nerve ending tissue. But this
industry removes that spinal cord very thoroughly."
-
- Still, a 2002 U.S. Food and Drug Administration survey
found that 33 percent of the meat products sampled from AMR production
had traces of spinal cord tissue.
-
- In 1994, the USDA changed its definition of meat to include
mechanically extracted products.
-
- Last year, the agency stepped up efforts to monitor spinal
tissue remnants, announcing the beginning of routine sampling of AMR meat
products.
-
- If spinal tissue is detected, the slaughterhouse's machinery
is flagged and the meat goes out with a special label reading, "mechanically
separated beef," and still can be sold to consumers. The label, however,
does not say the spinal cord tissue could be part of the package, according
to Smith DeWaal.
-
- The USDA also requests a voluntary recall for meat that's
already gone out with spinal tissue.
-
- But consumer groups say that's not enough.
-
- Test results are only reported if they result in a voluntary
recall, said Smith DeWaal.
-
- And without consumer labeling that clearly marks the
products as containing spinal tissue, meat eaters can't make informed choices
about which beef parts to avoid.
-
- "As we talked to the USDA about this, they told
us this is a quality issue, it's not a safety issue," said Smith DeWaal.
-
- There's no need to stop mechanically stripping cattle
carcasses, said Dean Cliver, professor of population health at the University
of California, Davis, who has served on a BSE advisory committee for the
Agriculture Department.
-
- The process helps keep the price of meat down and can
be done safely, he said.
-
- "The technology to not have spinal cord tissue (present
in meat) is available," said Cliver.
-
- "The technology to test for residue is available.
How rigorously that's enforced is another matter."
-
- ©1996-2003 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
- http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/154256_consumer27.html
|
