Farmed Animal Watch - September 5, 2003

1. SLAUGHTERPLANT ALLEGEDLY USED DEAD ANIMALS
Aylmer Meat Packers Inc., a Southwestern Ontario slaughterplant, is being investigated for processing dead animals ("deadstock") for the human food supply. The province's Deadstock Disposal Act prohibits the processing or sale of meat from dead animals, which is usually instead used for nonhuman animal food. Aylmer regularly received nonambulatory animals (for details, see: http://tinyurl.com/mcua ). It was shut down on August 21st following a pre-dawn raid the previous day. The next Monday -four days later- all of its beef products were recalled. (Aylmer also produced pork, veal and lamb.) It is the 5th time in 12 years the plant has lost its license.

The recent action followed a 2-month undercover operation, during which investigators reported witnessing 10 instances of dead animals being butchered when the plant was supposed to be closed. Neighbors told reporters they heard blood-curdling animal sounds late at night silenced by gunshots. They also complained of blood and cleaning solvents sprayed on surrounding fields by the slaughterplant staff. Aylmer owner Richard "Butch" Clare is said to have sold chicks and puppies at flea markets as a child with his father, a "pet dealer." Clare also owns a feedlot. Neighbors told of one incident where plant workers shot from a truck at escaped animals in a field. Clare was convicted in 1999 on assault and obstruction charges for manhandling a veterinarian and chasing labor officials from the plant. He has also been found guilty of numerous environmental violations. Clare denies the current allegations and has expressed "shock and concern" over media coverage of them: http://tinyurl.com/mctz At least one now-out-of-work Aylmer employee has publicly disputed the allegations and defends Clare: http://tinyurl.com/mcrp The Ontario SPCA has begun an investigation into the conditions under which animals are kept at Aylmer.

Federal inspectors have criticized the Ontario government for its slowness in handling the matter. (See: http://tinyurl.com/mcq3 ) The Premier of Ontario, Ernie Eves, suggested the two agencies responsible for meat safety, were unaware of what each other were doing. The Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food is responsible for routine slaughter inspection while the Ministry of Natural Resources investigates problems at plants. The owner of a local meat store, who worked in a slaughterplant for 20 years and now refuses to sell Aylmer meat, said: "There is nothing to stop you from killing beef when they aren't there. You could kill, turn it into hamburger which doesn't have an inspectors stamp, and ship it out before the inspector comes back for the next kill day. There aren't many checks and balances for what comes in and goes out." Allegations of dead and dying animals elsewhere being used for the human food supply are surfacing: http://tinyurl.com/mcqn

Earlier in August, SPCA inspectors found an illegal chicken slaughtering operation at a farm in Brampton, Ontario (west of Toronto). Over 400 live chickens were found along with 35 dead ones. The birds were being killed by hanging, which took several minutes for them to die. "The birds were suffering, and the conditions were completely unsanitary," a Senior Inspector said. Two men are to appear in court on September 15th where they each face five charges, including cruelty to animals. See: http://www.newswire.ca/releases/August2003/26/c4552.html

2. U.K. POULTRY MEAT FRAUD
Millions of dead chickens and turkeys arrived at Denby Poultry every year, rejected by poultry production plants. Their bodies, with broken bones and bruises or detectable disease, were only to be used for fertilizer or companion-animal food. Instead, most -more than 1,000,000 pounds- was trimmed, repackaged and passed through wholesalers to 800 businesses, including leading supermarkets, schools, convalescent homes, hotels and cafeterias, throughout the U.K. from 1995 to 2001. (Products containing Denby meat were also found in Germany and Spain.) Acting on a tip, police began a 2-month surveillance of the company in 2000, culminating in a raid on the company and a number of wholesalers. Denby was ultimately shut down, and 10 men were arrested and charged with conspiracy to defraud.

Denby, which was only licensed to make companion animal food, was able to exploit poorly enforced regulations governing food standards. According to the prosecutor, many vets poorly understood the criteria for whether birds could be used for companion-animal food or were to be used only as fertilizer. Jurors watched footage shot during the raid which showed storage bins overflowing with rotten, green-hued meat and the "crude, filth-ridden processing plant" with a standing pool of water containing raw sewage. The vans used by Denby were maggot infested and bloodstained. One driver said his van had a 2-inch thick carpet of maggots. A public health authority consultant testified it would be difficult to prove any cases of salmonella poisoning were caused by the meat. One of the conspirators made close to a half-million dollars from the fraud. He along with 4 others pled guilty and will be sentence later this year. The other 5 stood trial with all but one going free due to a hung jury (a retrial has been decided against). Peter Roberts (a.k.a. "Maggot Pete") was tried in absentia and found guilty. A warrant is out for his arrest.

The lead detective in the case criticized the Foods Standards Agency (FSA): "The FSA were slow in reacting to what we had found and our inquiry was delayed by two months....It took a great deal of time to convince people at the FSA that there was a need for a hazard warning." The FSA denies the accusations. It points to a new rule requiring high-risk animal parts be stained with black dye, and a new network of 30 specially trained detectives able to be called into action when required. "We know that this problem isn't going to go away, but we believe the work being done will help better protect the public," an FSA spokesperson explained. Consumer advocates are calling for higher penalties for food standards violations. The National Farmers' Union (NFU) counters that the existing laws are fine but need to be better enforced. It cited the "Little Red Tractor" program as a good example of instilling consumer confidence (see item #4 of issue #62).

"Bare Bones of a Cynical Food Scam," Evening Post, Jonathan Smart and Rebecca Sherdley, August 30, 2003. http://tinyurl.com/m96r or http://www.thisisnottingham.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=66056&command=displayContent&sourceNode=65583&contentPK=6845380
"Details from British Poultry Scam Show Inexperienced Vets, Massive Corruption," Meating Place News, Joshua Lipsky, September 2, 2003. http://www.meatingplace.com/DailyNews/pop.asp?ID=11208
"Fit to Police the Food Industry?" BBC News, August 29, 2003.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3191079.stm

3. LAW PROFESSORS CONDEMN U.K. GOVERNMENT'S FMD ACTION
The U.K. government's handling of the 2001 foot-and-mouth (FMD) crisis (see issue #21) "involved lawless action by a government on such a scale as to amount to a negation of the basic precepts of the rule of law," state two Cardiff Law School professors. David Campbell and Bob Lee have released a report entitled: "Carnage by Computer: The Blackboard Economics of the 2001 Foot and Mouth Epidemic," soon to be published in the academic magazine "Social and Legal Studies." They describe the mass slaughter of 10 million farmed animals as "despicably cruel," with "scores of reports of animals terrified prior to slaughter, being mainly maimed instead of killed outright, being buried and/or incinerated alive." An estimated 90% of the animals may not have been infected. The report says the Ministries of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) ignored legislation on the welfare of animals and committed or commissioned illegal acts of animal cruelty. The acts were described before a European Union Temporary Committee on FDM as "barbaric conduct [which] was a disgrace to humanity." The actions are also said to have involved large-scale violations of animal health laws. Millions of animals were sentenced to death as the result of faulty procedures and inappropriate information, Campbell and Lee charge. They warn that little has been done to prevent another outbreak from turning into a disaster.

4. CANADA CONSIDERS KILLING CATTLE
Typically, Canadian cattle who are no longer producing calves or milk at the demanded rate are sent to the U.S. each fall to be slaughtered for hamburger. With the BSE ban (see N.17, V.2), Canada is facing a population of some 525,000 such cattle by the end of the year (a worst-case scenario puts the number at 700,000). Both the U.S. and Mexico have agreed to begin accepting meat of cattle over 30 months of age (scientists believe the disease only manifests in older animals), but this will do little to help with the older cattle. Usually fetching about $700 (Canadian), they are now selling for about $120. Provincial governments are considering offering killing and burial services. Experience in Britain (see item #3) shows it can cost about $200 to dispose of each animal, which would amount to a national bill of about $100 million. Taxpayers would likely bear the costs as an extension of the almost $500-million federal-provincial compensation package for Canadian ranchers affected by "mad cow" disease.

At a recent national meeting of scientists and industry and government officials, it was said that cattle would be stunned with a bolt gun prior to being bled to death. Burial may not be an option in all provinces and some cattle might have to be rendered first to reduce volume. A Canadian Cattlemen's Association (CCA) spokesperson has rejected the mass killing suggestion, conceding it would be a public relations disaster. CCA continues to seek ways to market the animals: http://tinyurl.com/mcvc To date, Canadian exporters have lost more than $1 billion from the single incidence of the disease: http://tinyurl.com/mcvh

5. THE FUTURE OF ANTIBIOTICS IN ANIMAL AGRICULTURE
In mid-August, the World Health Organization recommended that antibiotics be phased out as growth promoters for farmed animals (see N.22, V.2). The organization cited Denmark's 1998 voluntary ban on antibiotic growth promoters as a successful model for other countries with intensive animal agriculture. (Denmark is the world's largest exporter of pig meat.) A coalition of industry groups quickly countered the WHO recommendation, noting among other things that the drugs are approved by the FDA and "have a decades-long track record of safety and efficacy": http://www.nppc.org/news/stories/2003/030818WHO.html For a copy of the 58-page WHO report, see: http://www.who.int/salmsurv/links/gssamrgrowthreportstory/en/ For a summary of the Denmark findings, see: http://www.eurosurveillance.org/ew/2003/030904.asp#3

The Soil Association, the U.K.'s leading organic proponent, recently accused British farmers of flouting a European Union ban on the use of certain antibiotics as growth promoters. A spokesperson remarked, "It is inevitable that animals become ill when they are kept in crowded conditions, which is why the intensive pig industry is still hooked on antibiotics": http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,2645124a3600,00.html

6. POULTRY HEALTH SYMPOSIUM
The University of California at Davis will sponsor a poultry health symposium to be held Sept. 9 in Redlands, Ca., and again Sept. 10 in Modesto, Ca. Topics to be discussed include exotic Newcastle disease (see N.5, V.2), infectious bronchitis, West Nile infections and avian influenza strains (see N.2, V.2), and vaccinations. A $20 registration fee include lunch. See (PDF file): http://animalscience.ucdavis.edu/Avian/PHS2003flyer.pdf

7. FEED & FOOD SAFETY (DOCUMENT & MEETINGS)
The USDA's Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) is accepting public comments on a "food safety vision document" intended to guide future efforts to improve the safety of U.S. meat, poultry and egg products and protect public health. "Enhancing Public Health: Strategies for the Future," outlines accomplishments and challenges to further reduce the incidence of foodborne illness. Among the initiatives it includes is a list of "best management practices" FSIS is developing for animal production facilities to provide guidance in reducing pathogen loads prior to slaughter. (A commentator for Meat Processing magazine who "translated" the document interprets this as meaning: "Despite reams and truckloads of rhetoric about our farm-to-table strategy, such a strategy really doesn't exist, because we [FSIS] are essentially powerless before the animal gets to the packinghouse. We will, however, prepare some documents in an effort to cajole the farmers and ranchers into doing a better job." A section on enforcement is translated as meaning: "We realize we shook up a lot of people a couple of months ago when we said we were about to jump on the bandwagon and seek new enforcement authority. Now we're not sure we meant it. We are therefore going to think about it for a while. Perhaps – even probably — we will set up a committee." See: http://www.meatnews.com/mp/northamerican/washington-na.cfm ) A press release with information on downloading the FSIS document and submitting comments can be found at: http://www.usda.gov/news/releases/2003/07/0245.htm (See also item #3 of issue #89.)

FSIS is holding a public meeting on pre-slaughter food safety and E. coli O157:H7, in Washington, D.C. on September 9th. The meeting will consist of presentations on the research and practical experiences for reducing E. coli O157:H7 at the production level prior to the slaughterplant stage. There will also be a brief review of currently practiced production-level interventions for other pathogens. For details or to submit comments see: http://www.fsis.usda.gov/OPPDE/rdad/FRPubs/03-031N.htm

The FDA is holding public meetings in Herndon, Va., on September 23rd and 24th, to discuss how animal feeds should be manufactured and distributed to minimize risks to animals consuming the feed and people consuming food products from the animals. For details or to submit comments, see: http://www.fda.gov/cvm/index/conferences/AFSSPubMtg.htm

"Clean Plants, Healthy Animals: Farm-Based Solutions to Food Safety Problems" is the title of a free conference the Center for Science in the Public Interest will be holding in Washington, D.C. on October 2, 2003. Scientists, health advocates, and industry representatives will discuss how crop and animal production practices can reduce human pathogens in animals, whether regulatory agencies need greater authority, and what farmers and ranchers can do to improve the safety of fruits, vegetables and meat. Among the topics is: "Humane Treatment and Food Safety: Are Both Possible?" For the conference agenda, a list of speakers, and registration information, see: http://www.cspinet.org/new/200308121.html