So, in order to appear somewhat concerned about the prevention of mad cow disease, the USDA often refers to an FDA ban, which prohibits the feeding of ground-up cattle meat to live cattle. Big whoop. Banning cannibalism is a no-brainer. But why even bother banning cannibalism when they still allow the feeding of
cattle blood
to young calves? Stanley Prusiner, a Nobel Prize Prize Winner for his work on mad cow disease, refers to this practice as “a really stupid idea.”164 Think about it: A cow dies from mad cow disease, but no one knows, because it wasn’t one of the .0005714% percent tested. Cattle ranchers are now forbidden to grind up this dead cow and feed it to other cows. But, they can give its blood to calves as part of their feed. How fucking stupid, disgusting, and dangerous is that?
The USDA also likes referring to another “safety” program in place, called The National Animal Identification System (NAIS).
The NAIS is a system for identifying an animal’s origin so that if its meat is found to be contaminated, it can be traced back to a specific farm. (Forget testing as a preventative measure. Implement a system for after someone eats contaminated meat and we need a recall.) Participation in this program is voluntary.165 Wow, the USDA sure has tough rules governing the safety of our country’s meat.
The USDA’s web site describing the NAIS actually has a section on “confidentiality.” It reads, “The NAIS will contain only information necessary for animal health officials to be able to track suspect animals and identify any other animals that may have been exposed to a disease. . . . To help assure participants that the information will be used only for animal health purposes, the information must be confidential. USDA and its State partners will work to protect data confidentiality.”166 What the fuck? The USDA will protect the data confidentiality of farms that are supplying the public with contaminated meat? Why don’t they just give all the ranchers blowjobs, too?
Many savvy consumers are catching on, and they know they cannot trust the USDA. According to the Organic Consumers Association, “Lester Friedlander, a former USDA veterinarian, says he was told by USDA officials as far back as 1991 that if his testing ever found evidence of Mad Cow disease, he was to tell no one. He and other scientists say they know of cases where cows tested positive for the disease in laboratories but were ruled negative by the USDA.”167 Trust no one!
Illegal hormones are regularly pumped into veal calves, which are suspected of increasing the growth of cancer cells in the humans who eat them. The USDA has not only been accused of overlooking these practices, but also of falsifying lab results, altering records, and pressuring staff to lie about events.168 Even the selfish whores who eat veal don’t deserve that.
Business First
None of us deserved to be deceived all these years by the preposterous USDA Dietary Guidelines and Food Pyramid, either. In 1998, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) filed a federal lawsuit against the USDA and the Department of Health and Human Services. PCRM claimed that federal laws were violated when the USDA selected six out of eleven people with financial ties to various food industries to serve on the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee. The committee members’ affiliations included the American Meat Institute, National Livestock and Beef Board, the American Egg Board, the National Dairy Promotion and Research Program, the National Dairy Council, Dannon Company (yogurt), Mead Johnson Nutritionals (milk-based infant formulas), Nestlé (milk-based formulas, ice cream, condensed milk), and Slim-Fast (milk-based diet products).169 How dare they?
(On a sidenote, PCRM also charged that the Dietary Guidelines
—which recommended dairy products—were racially biased, because most nonwhites are lactose-intolerant.170 According to Johnson & Johnson, lactose intolerance affects “over 50 percent of the Hispanic American population, 75 percent of Native Americans, 80 percent of African Americans, and 90 percent of Asian Americans.”171 Why does Johnson & Johnson care about the millions of minorities suffering from lactose intolerance? Because they can target these individuals for buying Lactaid, a product they hawk for aiding in dairy digestion.
Even though you are lactose intolerant and your body thoroughly rejects dairy products, eat them anyway. Just buy and take our drug so you don’t feel sick afterwards. Ugh, that just makes us sick with rage.) Got $19 billion? The milk industry does, so they’ve got the USDA in their back pocket.172 The California Milk Processor Board (CMPB) was established in 1993 to increase milk sales in California.
They were responsible for the campaigns that targeted children:
“Got milk?” and “Milk. It does a body good.” The CMPB is funded by all California milk processors, but administered by the California Department of Food and Agriculture. The National Fluid Milk Processor Promotion Board (Fluid Board) conceived of the “Milk Mustache” campaign, which targets young adults. The USDA’s Agriculture Monitoring Service administers the Fluid Board.173
Meaning, in essence, the California Department of Agriculture and the USDA are managing advertising campaigns for the milk industry. Under the guise of advancing health, they managed to dupe President Bill Clinton, while he was in office, into posing for their ads. They also had the audacity to feature the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Donna Shalala, sporting that stupid “milk mustache.”174 The Secretary of Health and Human Services using her status and title to promote a commercial product! Would she appear in ads for Pepsi or Nike? Say it out loud: conflict of interest.
They’ve even got the U.S. surgeon general in on the act. In the first-ever report on “the state of the nation’s bones,” the U.S. surgeon general warned of an impending “osteoporosis crisis” expected by the year 2020. In order to ward off this potential disaster, the Surgeon General’s report recommended three glasses of milk a day.
Guess who issued the report? The Department of Health and Human Services.175 Trust no one.
The horrors committed by the USDA could fill an entire book.
But we shouldn’t be surprised. Although they don’t list it as part of their primary mission statement, the USDA does admit to being “committed to helping America’s farmers and ranchers.”176 The same USDA responsible for “the safety” of meat, poultry, dairy, and eggs also promotes the sale of them. In fact, they even go so far as to purchase the products themselves, using
our
tax dollars. The USDA will spend $30 million a year on beef buyouts alone.
Another $30 million of
our
hard-earned money goes toward pork purchases.177 Wow. It must be nice for these industries to have the USDA bailing them out whenever they have a surplus of items.
What, exactly, do they do with all this food that
we
pay for?
All in a Day’s Work
Ever hear of the National School Lunch Program (NSLP)? It’s a nation-wide $4 billion scheme that allows the USDA to buy up all this meat, milk, and cheese with our tax dollars, and then dump this crap into the bodies of more than 26 million school children.178 Ever wonder why school lunches are
required
to include milk? The NSLP directly benefits the meat, dairy, and poultry industries at the expense of our nation’s children.
In 1999, a ground beef plant in Texas failed a series of USDA tests for salmonella. The tests showed that as much as 47 percent of the company’s ground beef contained salmonella—a proportion 5 times higher than what USDA regulations allow. Despite this, and the fact that high levels of salmonella in ground beef indicate high levels of fecal contamination, the USDA continued to purchase thousands of tons of the meat for distribution in schools. In fact, this company was one of the nation’s largest suppliers for the school meals, providing as much as 45 percent of the program’s ground meat.179
Contamination aside, according to Michele Simon of the Center for Informed Food Choices, “One evaluation of the commodity foods program estimates that 70 percent of the items offered exceed the U.S. dietary guidelines for fat.”180 For decades, consumer advocacy groups have been horrified by this unhealthy, profit-driven arrangement. With the backing of countless parents, physicians, and nutritionists, they have battled to get soy milk and other healthier choices approved by the USDA for use in school lunches. But the USDA (a.k.a.: the beef, pork, poultry, and dairy industries) wants no part in this, of course.
The USDA has fifteen food-assistance programs, including ones for the elderly, homeless, military, and poor. It is estimated that one in five Americans will take part in this $41.6 billion program.181
Sounds like the USDA is helping to feed a lot of people, right?
Right. They are feeding them fattening, unhealthy, artery-clogging, heart-stopping, acid-producing, contaminated meat, poultry, and dairy—with our money. How generous.
Organic or Not?
It’s not enough that they dictate all things meat and dairy, the USDA even sticks its big nose into our organic products, too. In April 2004, the USDA made sweeping changes to their National Organic Program (NOP) standards. The new rules infuriated organic farmers and consumers because: Livestock were allowed to eat non-organic fishmeal, even if it contained toxins or synthetic preservatives; cows and calves given growth hormones, antibiotics, or other drugs could still provide the public with “organic” milk, as long as a year had passed since the drugs were administered; pesticides could be used even if they contained unknown inert ingredients as long as a “reasonable effort” had been made to identify them; and seafood, pet food, clothing, fertilizers, and body care products could be labeled organic without being monitored by the USDA.183 Not only were people livid with the actual changes, but also with the decision-making process. By law, these types of regu-latory changes are required to undergo a period of public comment before being enacted. There was no comment period, just an announcement of changes after the fact.184
According to Ronnie Cummins, national director of Organic Consumers Association (OCA), “Rather than comply with regulations which uphold the integrity of organic food, corporate-run factory farms, who want a piece of the $11 billion a year organic industry, are manipulating the USDA and Congress to change the rules to suit their toxic-industrial style of farming. Allowing non-organic, and potentially genetically engineered feed to be included under the definition of “organic” is a major setback for the integrity of what is the fastest-growing sector of the food industry in this country.”185 Thanks to the phone calls, letters, e-mails, and faxes of many pissed off consumers, the USDA reversed all these changes in May 2004.186
Even so, many people are still mistrustful of the USDA.
Nonprofit group, The Center for Food Safety (CFS), claims that the USDA may be allowing “sham” certifiers under the umbrella of the National Organic Program (NOP). Their suspicions were aroused by the high volume of certifications issued within a short time. These worries were heightened when the USDA refused to provide CFS with requested documents, even though they were required to do so under the Freedom of Information Act.187
Other environmental groups along with the OCA have joined a lawsuit against the USDA. Among their complaints was the fact that the USDA’s NOP created an additional category of certified products, which directly opposes legislation put in place by Congress. They state, “When Congress has spoken clearly on a subject, USDA has no discretion to rewrite the statute making exceptions that dilute the standards of the Act.”188 Can you believe the nerve of these USDA fuckers? Going against laws created by our elected officials and making up their own rules? It’s fucking mutiny, is what it is. Trust no one.
When buying organic foods, look for certification from anyone other than the USDA. Oregon Tilth, California Certified Organic Farmers, Marin Organic Certifying Agency, and Demeter Certified Biodynamic are all reputable. Sometimes a product will be certified organic by the USDA and another party. So don’t rule it out just because the USDA certifies it.
Surely you’ve seen the “organic” Horizon brand of dairy products in your grocery store? It is the nation’s largest supplier of organic dairy products. Well, it just so happens that Horizon has been accused of violating organic standards. The Cornucopia Institute, a watchdog group in support of organic agriculture, filed two complaints with the USDA. They allege that two major farms that supply Horizon with milk are confining cows in an industrial setting and denying them access to pasture, yet are still calling their products organic.189
Why is all this allowed to happen? Don’t our elected officials know what’s going on? Why don’t they try to stop this? Some do.
But many politicians are in bed with the evil industries. McDonald’s alone has made close to $2 million in campaign contributions; the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association nearly $1.5 million; and the National Restaurant Association more than $3.1 million.190 Hate to sound like a broken record player, but trust no one.
Is Everyone in the FDA on Drugs?
This greed-induced immorality isn’t applicable just to Congress or the USDA. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is a pathetic facade, too. In 1990, the Monsanto Company sought FDA approval for Posilac, a commercialized form of bovine growth hormone (BGH, used to increase cows’ milk production). Even though the test study linked the hormone to prostate and thyroid cancer, the FDA still approved Posilac. Of course, these damning test results weren’t made available to the public until 1998, when a group of scientists conducted an independent analysis of the study.
They found that the FDA never even reviewed Monsanto’s findings! More recently, BGH has been linked to increased levels of Insulin Growth Factor-1, a cancer promoter. But the FDA has no interest in these findings, either. Or the fact that both the World Trade Organization and The United Nations Food Standards Body refuse to endorse the hormone’s safety. And they certainly don’t mind that BGH milk is banned in all of the European Union, Canada, Japan, and every other industrialized country in the world.191 Fucking Dumb Asses.