Inspectors: Struggling to Do Their Jobs

Roughly 10 billion animals are killed in our nation’s slaughterhouses each year, and many slaughterhouses now kill thousands of animals each day. The fast pace makes it difficult for inspectors to even keep up with the paperwork and the bacterial testing that are called for under HACCP, let alone go down the processing line and physically inspect carcasses. Inspector Paul D. Johnson explains: “Excessively high speed on slaughter lines is what causes contamination and introduces pathogens to the carcasses. Instead of maintaining or slowing line speeds, the government is approving higher speeds.”²³

Even if the government slowed down the lines to give inspectors enough time to do their jobs, the bureaucracy of the USDA often prevents them from taking any action to stop contaminated meat from entering our food supply. Felicia Nastor, food-safety director for the Government Accountability Project, describes her findings from a survey of meat inspectors this way: “Federal inspectors check paperwork, not food, and are prohibited from removing feces and other contaminants before products are stamped with the purple USDA seal of approval.”²⁴ The USDA allows carcasses that are tainted with feces and other contaminants to be sold to the public if the offending substance is cut off by plant employees, but many times, the line is moving too fast for the workers to cut off all the contaminated parts before the animal enters the food supply.²⁵ Since inspectors can’t remove the contaminants, and employees often don’t have time to do it, much of the meat that enters our food supply is tainted with substances that can make consumers sick.

Besides being barred from removing some contaminants from carcasses, inspectors in Kansas also received disturbing guidelines from USDA officials in 2002—they stated that if the inspectors stopped the line to inspect carcasses for feces or even to wash their hands, they would be held accountable for any money that the company lost because of the temporary slowdown.²⁶ “YOU are accountable for this very serious responsibility of stopping the company’s production for the benefit of food safety,” warned the guidelines before going on to discuss what type of feces the inspectors are allowed to remove from meat.²⁷ Paul Johnson, acting chair of the National Joint Council of Food Inspection Locals, said, “Inspectors know that a small smear of feces can have deadly consequences just as easily as an amount large enough to have ‘a fibrous nature,’ yet the [USDA] prohibits us from taking action that could protect consumers.”²⁸

As a result of the fast line speeds and mandates from the USDA that prevent inspectors from doing their jobs, carcasses contaminated with feces, vomit, bone, hair, metal fragments, and other unwholesome substances are routinely stamped with the USDA seal of approval. Dr. Lester Friedlander, a veterinarian who worked for the USDA for 10 years before resigning in 1995, says: “USDA veterinarians are supposed to be protecting animals from harm and the public from contaminated meat, but in reality they are forced to be little more than [paper-pushers] for the meat industry. During my time as a USDA vet, I was often pressured to look the other way as animals who were so sick that they couldn’t even walk were dragged to the killing floor. I saw animals with pus dripping out of open wounds all over their bodies taken inside the slaughterhouse, where they would be cut apart and sold to consumers with the USDA stamp of approval.” Read more about the contaminated meat that slips by inspectors, ending up in our grocery stores.

Punished for Doing Their Jobs

USDA inspectors are often pressured to keep quiet about problems in the slaughterhouses and processing plants that they monitor, and they are sometimes forced to lie to protect the farmed-animal industry if they want to keep their jobs. For instance, according to widely publicized testimony from USDA veterinarians, for the last two decades the USDA has routinely pressured its veterinarians to falsify food-safety documents. Dr. Lester Friedlander told reporters: “If I didn’t sign them, [plant employees would] call up Washington, D.C., and complain to higher management. Then I’d get a call from my supervisor urging me to sign the export certificates because the company is in a rush.”²⁹ In 2004, two veterinarians who refused to sign food-safety documents they believed to be inaccurate were suspended for two weeks without pay.³⁰

When they actually do their jobs and punish slaughterhouses that are violating food-safety standards, inspectors may be sued individually by the slaughterhouses for any profits lost because of a closure. According to a recent article in USA Today, “[T]he meat industry targets inspectors by suing them in civil court for massive damages under an obscure 1871 law that allows individuals, rather than a federal agency, to be held responsible for rights violations.”³¹

Sometimes the consequences of enforcing food-safety standards can even be fatal. In 2000, a sausage factory owner shot and killed three inspectors after they showed up to inspect his unlicensed meat-processing facility.³² Whether their jobs or their lives are at stake, the current system makes it very difficult for inspectors to take action against slaughterhouses and processing plants that routinely violate food-safety standards.

Read more about the faulty food-safety inspection system.