Area slaughterhouses break mad cow rules
PORTLAND — Slaughterhouses in Oregon and Washington state have been cited at least eight times for breaking federal rules to protect against mad cow disease, putting the Northwest above average for violations, according to a new study.
The group Public Citizen requested the data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 2004 under the Freedom of Information Act.
Some consumer advocates say it shows there are flaws in the government regulations approved in December 2003 to protect consumers after finding a mad cow in Washington state.
The animal was the first of two U.S. animals found with the fatal brain-wasting disease. Many doctors believe the disease can be transmitted to people if they eat portions of cattle containing the disease-causing agent, a protein called a prion.
The federal rules approved two years ago included a ban on slaughterhouses letting tonsils or small intestines from cattle into foods.
For cattle at least 30 months old, the age when mad cow disease typically appears, the ban extended to the brain, skull, eyes and parts of the spinal column. Slaughterhouses are supposed to have written plans for how to check the age of cattle they process and fully remove the banned material.
The USDA gave Public Citizen and other groups about 900 pages of reports on Monday, said Patty Lovera, deputy director of food programs for Public Citizen. Her group finished analyzing the data on Thursday.
The USDA said its workers did 8.8 million inspections nationwide from January 2004 through last May. Those resulted in 1,036 reports of slaughterhouses not following rules for removing parts of cattle most prone to mad cow infections.
The USDA and some meat processors say the noncompliance reports show the system is safe. Processors said many of the citations — less than a tenth of a percent of the total inspections — are for paperwork errors or other problems that do not affect food safety.
USDA spokeswoman Amanda Eamich said when problems are found, inspectors make meat processors fix them before releasing any meat to the public.
But Lovera said some of the citations recorded significant violations. And some plants were cited for repeatedly breaking rules.
The USDA cannot rely on inspectors to find and fix every mistake made during a period when an estimated 46 million cattle were processed, Lovera said.
After Public Citizen threw out violations not related to mad cow disease and ones successfully appealed by companies, 829 violation reports remained, according to the group’s analysis.
More than half involved processors who had no written plan for checking an animal’s age or removing the banned material, or cases of failure to follow those plans. One-third of the violations involved improper removing or handling of the banned material. More than a tenth of the violations were companies that failed to verify an animal’s age.