Fast Food Nation - Eric Schlosser [118]
Some people in the fast food industry resent the idea that Jack in the Box, which was involved in such a large outbreak of food poisoning, has assumed the mantle of leadership on the issue of food safety. Theno’s support for tough food safety legislation in California made him unpopular with the state’s restaurant association. The meatpacking industry is not fond of him, either. Theno says that the industry’s long-standing resistance to microbial testing is a form of denial. “If you don’t know about a problem,” he explained, “then you don’t have to deal with it.” He thinks that the problem of E. coli 0157:H7 contamination in ground beef can be solved. He has an optimistic faith in the power of science and reason. “If you put in a score-keeping system and profile these meatpacking companies,” Theno says, “you can fix this problem. You can actually fix this problem in six months… This is a matter of will, not technology.” Despite the meatpacking industry’s claims, the solution need not be enormously expensive. The entire Jack in the Box food safety program raises the cost of the chain’s ground beef by about one penny per pound.
a lack of recall
THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION’S EFFORTS to implement a tough, science-based food inspection system received an enormous setback when the Republican Party gained control of Congress in November of 1994. Both the meatpacking industry and the fast food industry have been major financial supporters of the Republican Party’s right wing. Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich’s Contract With America, stressing government deregulation and opposition to an increased minimum wage, fit perfectly with the legislative agenda of the large meatpackers and fast food chains. A study of campaign contributions between 1987 and 1996, conducted by the Center for Public Integrity, found that Gingrich received more money from the restaurant industry than any other congressman. Among the top twenty-five House recipients of restaurant industry funds, only four were Democrats. The meatpacking industry also directed most of its campaign contributions to conservative Republicans, providing strong support in the Senate to Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Jesse Helms of North Carolina, and Orrin Hatch of Utah. Between 1987 and 1996, Phil Gramm, a Republican from Texas, received more money from the meatpacking industry than any other U.S. senator. Gramm is a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, and his wife, Wendy Lee, sits on the board of IBP.
The meatpacking industry’s allies in Congress worked hard in the 1990s to thwart modernization of the nation’s meat inspection system. A great deal of effort was spent denying the federal government any authority to recall contaminated meat or impose civil fines on firms that knowingly ship contaminated products. Under current law, the USDA cannot demand a recall. It can only consult with a company that has shipped bad meat and suggest that it withdraw the meat from interstate commerce. In extreme cases, the USDA can remove its inspectors from a slaughterhouse or processing plant, for all intents and purposes shutting down the facility. That step is rarely taken, however — and can be challenged by a meatpacker in federal court. In most cases, the USDA conducts negotiations with a meatpacking company over the timing and the scale of a proposed recall. The company has a strong economic interest in withdrawing as little meat as possible from the market (especially if the meat is difficult to trace) and in limiting publicity about the recall. And every day the USDA and the company spend discussing the subject is one more day in which Americans risk eating contaminated meat.