The New Food-Safety System: ‘Have a Cup of Coffee and Pray’

In 1996, a new food-safety system called Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) was adopted by the Clinton administration under newly appointed Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman. (Clinton’s first secretary, Mike Espy, resigned after it was discovered that he was taking lavish gifts from Tyson Foods.)^16,17

Under HACCP, each animal-processing plant figures out what areas of the plant are most hazardous (“hazard analysis”) and what areas are most likely to contaminate animal carcasses (“critical control points”), and then the processing plant comes up with a system for preventing contamination problems at these points. The plant’s inspector is left to review paperwork and sign off on forms for HACCP instead of actually inspecting animals on the floor.

Delmer Jones, president of the U.S. Meat Inspection Union, explains: “Under HACCP today, inspectors are no longer inspecting. Industry is inspecting itself; inspectors are basically doing paperwork. . . . As an analogy, imagine that as a driver, you must write yourself a ticket every time you exceed the speed limit because you’re breaking the law.”¹⁸ Albert Midoux, who worked as a meat inspector for 28 years, says: “Factory farms do their own testing of meats under USDA supervision. It’s like the wolf guarding the hen house. Our USDA stamp doesn’t mean that food is safe, it means ‘watch out.’”¹⁹

The new system also reclassified carcasses with cancerous tumors, abscesses, and open sores as safe for human consumption even though these “aesthetic” defects can be signs of serious underlying illnesses that can be passed on to humans.²⁰

An investigation conducted by The Philadelphia Inquirer sums up the problems with HACCP this way: “The United States’ flawed meat-inspection system, which relies heavily on self-policing by the industry, discourages aggressive enforcement by government inspectors and often fails to protect consumers until it is too late.”²¹ The new system is so worthless that inspectors themselves call it “Have a Cup of Coffee and Pray” (HACCP) because they believe that prayer would more effectively protect Americans from food poisoning than HACCP does.²²

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