Two years ago, U.S. food safety officials warned that Canadian meat and poultry inspections were lacking, yet the Agriculture Department refused to stop the flow of imports from Canada, a department investigation found.
So, Canadian meat processors don't meet the standards as required yet the USDA continues to let them ship cattle into the US.
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.
Daily inspections are required at U.S. processing plants, and the law requires foreign countries to have equivalent inspections.
U.S. officials halted imports from Australia in June 2004 and Belgium in 2003 because those countries didn't have daily inspections, the report says.
The meat packers in Canada are the same meat packers in the US and since the USDA does whatever the meat packers want, of course they allow Canada to continue to ship meat in. It's good for the meat packers and to hell with food safety. The meat packers don't care.
It's one of those things that I have never been afraid of the competition from Canadian cattle. I can handle that as long as the playing field is level. When the playing field is skewed in Canada's favor, especially when it comes to food safety, I am opposed to such things and this is one of those times.
The Agriculture Department said it will take until 2007 to make a final decision on whether Canada's system is equivalent to the U.S. system.
This is criminal. Continue to ship in potentially unsafe food and the USDA/meat packers will wait until 2007 to make a decision whether it will be "okey-dokie" or not. Flat criminal, where's my noose.
Canada Has 4th Case of Mad-Cow Disease Since 2003 Canada said a 6-year-old cow in Alberta tested positive for mad-cow disease, the fourth domestic case since May 2003. The infected animal didn't enter the food chain, Brian Evans, chief veterinary of
Tracked: Jan 24, 03:57