Report: Canadian Meat Not Well-Screened (Guardian)

Tuesday January 10, 2006 12:02 AM

By LIBBY QUAID

AP Food and Farm Writer

its way into U.S. grocery stores despite government officials' warnings that Canada wasn't doing enough to assure the safety of its food products.

A report by the Agriculture Department inspector general found that food safety officials in the department warned two years ago that public health was at risk, yet agency brass refused to act.

In fact, the department says it can't take final action until November 2007. Meanwhile, Canadian officials say they have already taken steps to fix the problems.

The report was obtained Monday by The Associated Press.

More: http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-5534716,00.html

WHo I hear through the GV are ten times worse

I'll enjoy a Canadian or Venezuelan steak as quickly as any other.

Canada has the capability of screwing the pooch just as bad as the U.S.!

My complaint is why, when we've already seen Canada's failings, is AP not looking at the US industry to see if the same shortcomings exist?
Seems like a slur job, probably on behalf of R-calf.

Wow.

:toast:

with Canadian beef for years. And then they went into Canada and bought cattle at rock bottom prices.

Perhaps this is true. Boy who cried wolfie comes to mind. Were not Canadian drugs more dangerous to Americans too?

Obviously have problems. ANd it's just a matter of time before the US industry has its day... however I've heard there are some pretty major things swept under the rug in the US industry.

:eyes:

The inspector general identified three big concerns with Canadian inspections:

-Inspections were not done daily at Canadian food processing plants.

-Canada lacked adequate sanitation controls.

-Inspectors didn't sample ready-to-eat products for listeria, which can cause deadly food poisoning.

scroll down the story a bit...then:


Canada's tests for listeria are internationally recognized, but inspectors there have switched to the U.S. approach of testing finished products, Anderson said.

So there's a problem with testing it the American way? :shrug:

Amazing how an organisation like that can dominate world news.

I still eat chicken or at least until I'm scared out of that too. Then I will live on peanut butter sandwhiches.

We all spray our fields with Monsanto crap and shoot dangerous vaccines in the veins of our cattles.

But agreed, as a Canadian I'm not affraid to eat anything at the grocery store...

A two part series (two hours total) talks about this very issue in depth, which I believe is airing this week now.

They note how the Europeans learned their lesson the hard way, and have very strict protective measures in place. Japan also has put in place some very strict preventative measures, but both the U.S. and Canada have more lax laws that are ignoring our potential vulnerability (and perhaps that many of us may already be "dormantly" being infected, since the disease takes time to show itself in infected animals and humans).

The biggest problem cited with the U.S. and Canada is that they don't restrict poultry or pork meat products from being put back into the feed that goes to cattle, nor the cattle parts going to poultry or pork, even if they restrict cattle parts being used in cattle feed.

The problem there is, even though poultry and hogs don't get Mad Cow disease themselves, they HAVE been shown to carry the disease. By not restricting their by products into cattle feed, they could be continuing to perpetuate this disease here, albeit in not as significant amounts as it might have been before.

It is a time bomb ticking, and it has me thinking a lot more of making sure I request organic meats and look to buy them from places like Whole Foods or Trader Joes, since that's probably the one sure way to make sure you avoid getting the disease if you eat meat, since organic meat is supposed to be range fed and not fed with this "cannibalistic" feed.