Word: usda
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...because of industry and regulatory negligence, callousness or profit-mongering. At least 143 pesticides and drugs--some deliberately injected into animals, others accumulated when livestock are fed pesticide-treated grain--are known to leave residues in meat and poultry. Only 46 of these are now monitored by the USDA, the agency responsible for inspecting meat, even though 40 are suspected of causing cancer and 18 are suspected of causing birth defects. Antibiotic arsenic compounds, sulfa drugs (long ago linked to cancer), and the infamous diethylstilbestrol (DES), which was found to cause cervical cancer way back in 1971 in daughters...
...dietary horrors, Congress has been asking what the three government agencies responsible for monitoring food are doing. They've found some disturbing answers. The House Commerce Oversight Committee points out that "a distressingly large number" of chemicals known to leave meat residues simply aren't looked for by the USDA, probably because less than 1 per cent of USDA's total inspection budget is devoted to residue monitoring. In addition, the USDA uses a "wholly inadequate" data base to determine permissible levels of chemical residues. Called the Total Diet Study, the data consists of a mere 30 supposedly representitive grocery...
Even when a chemical does exceed one of the few limits set by the agency, Congress has found that the FDA "investigates few of the residue violations...and rarely prosecutes violators." Both the FDA and the USDA, the Congressional study adds, "almost never result in meat or poultry recalls." In fact, the highly-touted USDA "stamp of approval" has frequently been given to meat known to be illegally contaminated--but sold to consumers anyway...
Even if Congress is stirred into action, though, the Office of Technology Assessment notes that increased regulation by the FDA, USDA, and EPA "are not likely to prevent the deliberate or accidental misuse or disposal of the thousands of toxic substances manufactured in the U.S." The answer, then, is to create incentives within industry, and so to encourage industry to regulate itself. This answer has been proposed in a bill coming up in the House of Representatives. Sponsored by Rep. George Miller (D-Cal.), H.R. 4973 imposes a minimum of two years in jail and a fine...
...cite found in 1970 that 22 per cent of the U.S. food supply is produced by corporate farmers and by contract. The American Agriculture Marketing Association predicts that by 1985 corporations will control 75 per cent of our food supply in one of these two ways. And even the USDA admitted in a 1973 report that only cash grain and forage crops, and range livestock will be controlled by independent family farmers in 1985. Pat Benedict, a wheat farmer, is the exception, not the rule...