Largest beef recall in USDA history: illegal alien involved (Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing)

The USDA has announced the largest beef recall in their history involving 143 million pounds produced by the Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Company since 2006. One of those involved in the case is an illegal alien from Mexico (link):

"I did it because they ordered me to. I obeyed them; if not, I lost my job," [Luis Sanchez, assistant to Hallmark's head pen manager] said in Spanish. "I knew it was illegal but they obliged me to do it." Sanchez said he is an undocumented immigrant from Mexico and that he worked at Hallmark for six years before he was fired last month. He is not represented by an attorney.

While plenty of Americans would be willing to move downer cows with a forklift (AP video here), someone being here illegally increases the risk that they would just follow orders and also reduces their fear of the consequences of such actions due to them being able to simply return to their home country.

Much of the beef has already been consumed, and they were the second largest supplier to the National School Lunch Program, in addition to supplying fast food chains.

Comments

Just in case folks are unaware the regulations prohibiting downer cows from entering the food supply were put in place in precaution of the spread of mad cow disease.

There's shit in the meat. Bon appetit!

[Just in case folks are unaware the regulations prohibiting downer cows from entering the food supply were put in place in precaution of the spread of mad cow disease.] We also butcher cows younger before they can manifest the disease symptoms (the cows are still infected but not dysfunctional). Downer cows are not tested.... We still feed cows "ground up cows" Mad cow prions cannot be killed or rendered safe to eath with cooking. The mad cow threat of this "incident" is miniscule, the mad cow threat of eating animal fed animals is huge, one contaminated cow can contaminate teh feed for hundreds or thousands of cows-and ultimately their consumers. Cows become "non-ambulatory" (unable to walk) for a variety of reasons including illness, disease and injury, cows with "mad cow" can still "pose" or pass as healthy cows. Its unlikely that downer cows ground up & sold had Mad cow disease manifestations, they were too young. Theoretically none of our butcher cows should ever develop Mad cow disease because we kill them before the diesease can manifest symptoms.

We should test every cow before slaughter. I read before that the added cost to do so was minuscule. Japan currently tests all their beef. A couple of years ago there was a small beef producer in Kansas, that wanted to test all their cattle before slaughter. The Dept of Agriculture wouldn't allow them too. They said only the government could verify the beef was safe. This was even with the producer using the rapid test that Europe and Japan does. The bottom line was the big beef producers didn't want a small guy testing his beef and labeling it as being tested. They don't want to test their beef and don't want the competition of someone who does.

Here's another illegal alien story. How can you tell? They leave out the race of the perp, which was revealed by other news outlets. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-pepperspray19feb19,0,1067152.story

smitty and honchocho, You're absolutely right. I guess my point being that even the lame regulatory precautions against mad cow enacted are worse than worthless as long as they rely one the compliance of an increasingly outlaw and politically connected industry as meatpacking. Now, I waiting for the position paper from Ultra Libertarian CATO and Independent institutes on how the government should not stand in the way of the public's demand for mad cow infected beef.