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Dangerous hide-and-seek with recalled meat Government agencies such as the Consumer Product Safety Commission have the authority to order recalls of toys and other products if they are deemed potentially dangerous. But when meat is infected with E. coli, listeria, or in one instance, mad cow disease, the U.S. Department of Agriculture does not have the authority to order a recall--it can only encourage meat processors to recall their meat voluntarily. The USDA does not give state officials information about the locations of stores and restaurants that have received recalled meat unless the state agrees to keep the names of the retailers secret from the public. The absurdity of this policy was revealed in January 2004 in California, one of 12 states reported to have signed such a secrecy agreement. The state received a shipment of beef products subject to a voluntary recall because it included meat and bones from a cow that tested positive for mad cow disease. The meat and bones were mixed with 38,000 pounds of other beef and sold in California and five other states. But while California officials had received that information, California consumers had no way of knowing which grocery stores or restaurants got any of the tainted products, because the state had agreed to keep that information secret. Thirty-eight states have not signed the USDA’s secrecy agreement. As a result, the USDA does not give officials there the names of the retailers in those states that have received the recalled meat. The policy is not only absurd, but also dangerous. While it appears that there has not yet been a case of a person contracting the human form of mad cow disease from contaminated beef eaten in the U.S., the disease is always fatal. And the USDA typically recovers only about 38 percent of recalled meat, poultry, and egg products. The government argues that meat processors view the names of retailers as confidential business information and will resist the release of beef recall information unless it is protected from disclosure. But even though California officials were told which retailers had received the recalled beef, consumers were not better protected by the policy. It took 14 days from the time the infected cow was slaughtered for the USDA to issue a voluntary recall, and another week for local health officials to be notified that product from the recalled lot had been distributed to retail outlets in their areas. By the time officials contacted restaurants and grocery stores, some of the product had been sold. Consumers Union helped to write and support model legislation in California to get around the USDA’s secrecy agreement and require meat processors and distributors to notify state health officials of the retail locations of their recalled meat, so that the state can notify the public. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the legislation in late September, saying that the measure compromises “California’s ability to obtain timely information from the federal government, which could weaken our ability to protect public health.” A few weeks later, the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, issued a report titled “USDA and FDA Need to Better Ensure Prompt and Complete Recalls of Potentially Unsafe Food,” which criticizes the agencies’ handling of food recalls and says that they should be given the authority to recall unsafe food. We agree. And the USDA should not be in the business of forcing states to sign agreements to keep consumers in the dark about
something so fundamental to their safety.
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