Egg, meat scandals in the USA

This video is called Salmonella pathogenesis.

By Naomi Spencer in the USA:

Egg recall exposes unsafe US food supply

25 August 2010

The recall of more than half a billion eggs potentially tainted with salmonella is expanding to more states and companies across the US a week after it was first announced. The eggs, all produced by two closely linked Iowa companies, Wright County Egg and Hillandale Farms, are responsible for a mass outbreak of food poisoning that has sickened thousands since May.

In a separate development, Tyson Foods, the country’s largest meat producer, announced Tuesday a recall of 380,000 pounds of deli meats distributed to Wal-Mart stores nationwide that are potentially contaminated with Listeria.

The recalls underscore the vulnerability of the population to the most preventable illnesses because of the subordination of public health and food safety to the profit motive. Corporations have been allowed to engage in blatantly unsafe practices, with nominal fines, while the government has rejected even the most basic steps required to improve food safety.

According to an August 22 Washington Post report, federal investigations into 26 salmonella outbreaks traced 15 back to Wright County Egg, which recalled 380 million eggs last week.

No deaths have so far been recorded, but salmonella causes fever, severe vomiting and diarrhea and abdominal pain. It can also cause fatal infections if the bacteria enters the bloodstream. At least 1,300 cases of officially reported salmonella poisoning between May and July may have been caused by tainted eggs.

This figure likely grossly understates the real rate of illness. According to government figures, approximately one in every 38 cases of salmonella poisoning is officially recorded—meaning that the true number of cases caused by the tainted eggs could number in the tens of thousands.

Wright County Egg’s owner, Austin “Jack” DeCoster, has a long history of egregious health, labor and environmental violations, as well as numerous charges of animal cruelty. DeCoster has family and substantial financial ties to Hillandale Farms, which recalled 170 million eggs Friday, and the two companies purchase their chickens and feed through the same suppliers.

On August 21, the Washington Post published a partial list of violations and allegations against DeCoster, dating back to the mid-1990s. In 1996, the Labor Department fined DeCoster $3.6 million for brutal conditions at his Turner egg farm.

Recalled eggs could wind up on your supermarket shelf: here.

This week’s massive recalls of contaminated eggs and lunch meats have lifted the veil on the source of the US food supply in brutal and unsanitary sweatshops: here.

Rotten eggs, corporate foxes, and a crumbling henhouse: here.

In a 2008 letter, the egg industry tried to water down new rules: here.

The other big recall: Wal-Mart and Tyson combine to release more than a million listeria-tainted sandwiches: here.

US Drops to 49th in the world for life expectancy; things are really crappy for white Americans too: here.

In the deadliest food poisoning outbreak in the US in over a decade, at least 15 people have died of listeriosis linked to Colorado-grown cantaloupes: here.