Safe Food_ Bacteria, Biotechnology, and Bioterrorism - Marion Nestle [42]
I have two additional reasons for emphasizing meat safety. First, as I discussed in Food Politics, meat and poultry producers are especially adept at using the political system to their own advantage. They generously support both political parties, form close personal relationships with members of Congress and officials of regulatory agencies, and often use the so-called revolving door to exchange their executives’ positions for those in government and vice versa. When meat producers complain about policies that appear unfavorable to their interests, government officials listen. As noted earlier, meat producers make little attempt to hide their lobbying activities, and their motives are transparent and readily documented. Second, as these chapters explain, the history of attempts to regulate the beef and chicken industries illustrates issues germane to other food commodities and products.
This chapter and the next recount events in the history of meat and poultry regulation from the early 1970s to the early 2000s. These events each illustrate one or more of the issues that make food safety political: (1) the weaknesses—grounded in past and present history—of the current governmental oversight system; (2) the close personal and professional relationships of meat and poultry producers with officials of Congress and regulatory agencies, particularly the USDA; (3) the consistent and often successful efforts of these industries to block regulations that might adversely affect their commercial interests; (4) the industries’ denial of responsibility for outbreaks of foodborne illness; and (5) their invocation of science as a means to prevent unwanted oversight.
This chapter describes the events leading up to federal attempts to control microbial pathogens through development of the science-based preventive measures known collectively as Pathogen Reduction: Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP). Chapter 3 explains how the regulated industries reacted once the USDA and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) finally required them to install and adhere to HACCP rules. We will see that HACCP systems hold great promise for protecting the food supply, especially when they require testing for microbial pathogens. To understand why meat and poultry producers—and their friends in Congress and the USDA—so resisted this approach, we must first examine the historical basis of the close working partnerships among these industries and government officials, committees, and agencies.
THE USDA’S HISTORIC MISSION: PROMOTING FOOD PRODUCTION
Congress created the USDA in 1862 for one principal purpose: to make sure that enough food was available at all times to feed the population. To accomplish this worthwhile goal, the department protected agricultural producers and promoted the marketing of American agricultural products. The USDA interpreted its mandate to include research and dietary advice to the public, and it established units devoted to such activities by the early 1900s. Much later, in the 1970s, Congress directed the department to provide food assistance to the poor and to take greater responsibility for issuing advice about nutrition. As I explained in Food Politics, these functions did not cause conflict as long as dietary advice encouraged people to eat more of U.S. agricultural products. When chronic diseases replaced infectious diseases among the leading causes of death, however, dietary advice shifted. Health officials began to recommend restrictions on the intake of fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol as a means to prevent heart disease. For the first time, following dietary advice meant eating less, and particularly less of foods containing fat and cholesterol: meat, dairy, eggs, and fried and processed foods. At that point, the purposes of the USDA came into sharp conflict. One branch of the department