How about some ammonia with that burger?

I just read the NY Times article "The Burger that Shattered her Life" by Michael Moss, about Stephanie Smith, a young dance teacher left paralyzed after contracting E. coli from a hamburger. For anyone that assumes ground beef is safer since meat companies were forbidden to sell E. coli contaminated products, consider this: According to health officials, "tens of thousands of people are still sickened annually by this pathogen, federal health officials estimate, with hamburger being the biggest culprit."

According to the article, the hamburger was produced by Cargill which uses a variety of meat sources in order to lower their costs. The deadly hamburger that Smith consumed was "made from a mix of slaughterhouse trimmings and a mash-like product derived from scraps that were ground together at a plant in Wisconsin. The ingredients came from slaughterhouses in Nebraska, Texas and Uruguay, and from a South Dakota company that processes fatty trimmings and treats them with ammonia to kill bacteria."

I thought back to October 1999, when Barb Goethe of AZSPCA and I were investigating farm animal cruelty at livestock auctions. One of the most disturbing incidents we witnessed was at a slaughterhouse in the Southwest Valley, where around 40 newborn calves had been left in a holding pen over the weekend with no food or water. By Monday morning, the calves were too weak to stand and were lying in urine and feces. We contacted law enforcement to intervene. As police arrived, slaughterhouse workers began throwing the feeble animals into large garbage bins.

The USDA supposedly investigated the facility, but it was permitted to continue operations. Following the incident, the slaughterhouse added high metal walls surrounding the plant, which is still in business.

It is appalling that large agribusiness continues to utilize inhumane and unsafe practices while resisting improved transparency and oversight. Apparently this industry's standard response to food safety and animal welfare concerns is to keep building high walls.

Karen Michael