USDA Allows “Downer Cows” To Be in Your Meat

If there was ever a time to stop eating beef, or at least change over to organic beef, I think it would be now.

Although the Agriculture Department prohibits the use of beef from “downer” cattle in federally funded school lunches, the agency sometimes allows the meat in the general food supply, a disparity that critics say undercuts officials’ contention that there is no food safety reason to ban meat from all cows too sick or injured to stand.

The tougher standard also raises questions about why a major supplier to the school lunch program was processing downers when it was found in January to be treating them inhumanely.

Federal officials ordered recall of 143 million pounds of beef processed by Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. in Chino, Calif. — including 37 million pounds that had gone to public nutrition programs. It was the largest such recall in U.S. history. No illnesses have been tied to the meat.

Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United States, which sent a worker undercover to videotape mistreatment at the plant, said the disparate standards for school lunch meat and commercial beef make no sense.

“It’s grounded on hypocrisy in that we are forbidding beef from downer cows for 30 million school children, but we’re allowing downer cows to be fed to those same kids when they are home, as well as to 270 million other Americans,” said Pacelle, whose group favors a prohibition on all downer meat. “It’s an entirely inconsistent policy.”

When these companies are based on greed, do you really think they give a shit if the cow was actually sick, or had been lying it’s it’s feces from an acute injury, before it gets slaughtered?

I truly believe that no downer cows should be slaughtered for our food supply. And as it is noted late in the article, less than 500,000 cows are downers of the 35 million cows that are slaughtered each year. Is it really that difficult for slaughter houses to remove downer cows from our food supply?