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8. The Most Dangerous Job

This chapter is based largely on interviews that I conducted with dozens of Latino meatpacking workers in Colorado and Nebraska. I also interviewed a former slaughterhouse safety director, a former slaughterhouse nurse, former plant supervisors, and a physician whose medical practice was for years devoted to the treatment of slaughterhouse workers. All of these managerial personnel had left the meatpacking industry by choice; none had been fired; and their reluctance to use their real names in this book stems from the widespread fear of the meatpackers in rural communities where they operate. I am grateful to those who spoke with me and showed me around.

Deborah E. Berkowitz, the former director of health and safety at the UFCW, was an invaluable source of information about the workings of a modern slaughterhouse and the dangers that workers face there. Her article on meatpacking and meat processing in The Encyclopaedia of Occupational Health and Safety (Geneva, Switzerland: International Labour Organization, 1998), cowritten with Michael J. Fagel, is a good introduction to the subject. Curt Brandt, the president of UFCW Local 22 in Fremont, Nebraska, described the various tactics he’s seen meatpacking firms use over the years to avoid compensating injured workers. Two Colorado attorneys, Joseph Goldhammer and Dennis E. Valentine, helped me understand the intricacies of their state’s workers’ comp law and described their work on behalf of injured Monfort employees. Rod Rehm, an attorney based in Lincoln, Nebraska, spent many hours depicting the conditions in his state and arranged for me to meet some of his clients. Rehm is an outspoken advocate for poor Latinos in a state where they have few political allies. Bruce L. Braley, one of the attorneys in Ferrell v. IBP , told me a great deal about the company’s behavior and sent me stacks of documents pertaining to the case. “Killing Them Softly: Work in Meatpacking Plants and What It Does to Workers,” by Donald D. Stull and Michael J. Broadway, in Any Way You Cut It , is one of the best published accounts of America’s most dangerous job. “Here’s the Beef: Underreporting of Injuries, OSHA’s Policy of Exempting Companies from Programmed Inspections Based on Injury Record, and Unsafe Conditions in the Meatpacking Industry,” Forty‑Second Report by the Committee on Government Operations (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1988), shows the extraordinary abuses that can occur when an industry is allowed to regulate itself. After the congressional investigation, Christopher Drew wrote a terrific series of articles on meatpacking, published by the Chicago Tribune in October of 1988. The fact that working conditions have changed little since then is remarkably depressing. Gail A. Eisnitz’s Slaughterhouse: The Shocking Story of Greed, Neglect, and Inhumane Treatment Inside the U.S. Meat Industry (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1997), suggests that many cattle are needlessly brutalized prior to slaughter. Nothing that these sources reveal would come as a surprise to readers of Upton Sinclair.

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172 The injury rate in a slaughterhouse: In 1999, the most recent year for which statistics are available, the injury and illness rate in the nation’s meatpacking industry was 26.7 per 100 hundred workers. For the rest of U.S. manufacturing, it was 9.2 per hundred workers. See “Industries with the Highest Nonfatal Total Cases, Incidence Rates for Injuries and Illnesses, Private Industry, 1999,” Bureau of Labor Statistics, December 2000; and “Incidence Rates of Nonfatal Occupational Injuries and Illnesses by Selected Industries and Case Types, 1999,” Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, December 2000.

172 roughly forty thousand men and women: The meatpacking industry now has about 147,600 workers, and at least 26.7 percent of them suffer workplace injuries and illnesses. See “Industries with the Highest Nonfatal Total Cases.”

Thousands of additional injuries and illnesses: At some plants, as many as half of the workers may be hurt each year. You need spend only an hour or so with a roomful of poor Latino meatpacking workers to get a sense of how many serious injuries are never reported.

Poultry plants can be largely mechanized: Despite the higher level of mechanization, workers in the poultry industry have one of the nation’s highest rates of injury and illness, largely due to the repetitive nature of the work and the speed of the production line.

173 roughly thirty‑three times higher than the national average: In 1999 the incidence of repeated trauma injuries in private industry was 27.3 per 10,000 workers; in the poultry industry the rate was 337.1; and in the meatpacking industry it was 912.5. See “Industries with the Highest Nonfatal Illness Incidence Rate of Disorders Associated with Repeated Trauma and the Number of Cases in These Industries,” Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, December 2000.

adds up to about 10,000 cuts: According to Berkowitz and Fagel, some production jobs can require 20,000 cuts a day. Berkowitz and Fagel, Enclyclopaedia of Occupational Health and Safety , p. 67.14.

174 beef slaughterhouses often operate at profit margins: According to Steve Bjerklie, the profit margin for slaughter is about 1 percent, with additional earnings from processing and the sale of byproducts. See Steve Bjerklie, “On the Horns of a Dilemma,” in Any Way You Cut It , p. 42.

widespread methamphetamine use: Many workers told me stories about methamphetamine use. See also Lee, “Meatpacking towns seen as key funnel for meth.”

only one‑third of IBP’s workers belong to a union: Cited in Cohen, “Free Ride with Help from INS.”

176 awarded $2.4 million to a female employee… “screamed obscenities and rubbed their bodies”: A federal judge later reduced the award to $1.75 million. See Lynn Hicks, “IBP Worker Awarded $2.4 Million by Jury,” Des Moines Register , February 27, 1999; Lynn Hicks, “Worker: Sexism, Racism at IBP,” Des Moines Register , February 3, 1999; “IBP Told to Pay Attorney’s Fees,” Des Moines Register , December 30, 1999.

the company paid the women $900,000: See “Monfort Beef to Pay $900,000 to Settle Sexual Harassment Suit,” Houston Chronicle , September 1, 1999.

pressured them for dates and sex: Ibid.

They are considered “independent contractors”: As a result, the meatpacking firms are not liable for the work‑related injuries of the slaughterhouse employees who face the greatest risks. When OSHA tried to penalize IBP for the death of a sanitation worker, IBP appealed the decision, with the backing of the National Association of Manufacturers, before a federal appeals court in 1998 – and won. Although the meatpackers own the slaughterhouses and the slaughterhouse equipment, they are not legally responsible for the immigrants who clean them. See Stephan C. Yohay and Arthur G. Sapper, “Liability on Multi‑Employer Worksites,” Occupational Hazards , October 1998.

178 Richard Skala was beheaded: See Jim Morris, “Easy Prey: Harsh Work for Immigrants,” Houston Chronicle , June 26, 1995.

Carlos Vincente: See “Guatemalan Man Dies after Falling into Machinery of Beef Processing Plant,” AP , November 3, 1998; “Ft. Morgan Firm Faces $350,000 in OSHA Fines,” AP , May 4, 1999.

Lorenzo Marin, Sr.: See Mark P. Couch, “IBP Told to Pay Damages to Family,” Des Moines Register , June 7, 1995.

Another employee of DCS Sanitation… The same machine: See Jim Rasmussen, “Company Expecting Fines Today; Death at IBP Plant May Cost Ohio Firm,” Omaha World‑Herald , October 7, 1993.

Homer Stull climbed into a blood‑collection tank: See Allen Freedman, “Workers Stiffed: Death and Injury Rates among American Workers Soar, and the Government Has Never Cared Less,” Washington Monthly , November 1992.

Henry Wolf had been overcome: See “Liberal Packing Plant Fined $960,” UPI , October 19, 1983.

179 its 1,300 inspectors: See Kenneth B. Noble, “The Long Tug‑of‑War over What Is How Hazardous; For OSHA, Balance Is Hard to Find,” New York Times , January 10, 1988; and Christopher Drew, “Regulators Slow Down as Packers Speed Up,” Chicago Tribune , October 26, 1988.

more than 5 million workplaces: Cited in “Here’s the Beef,” p. 4.

A typical American employer: Cited in Susannah Zak Figura, “The New OSHA,” Government Executive , May 1997.

The number of OSHA inspectors: See Noble, “The Long Tug of War”; and Drew, “Regulators Slow Down.”

a new policy of “voluntary compliance”: See “Here’s the Beef,” p. 3.

While the number of serious injuries rose: See Christopher Drew, “A Chain of Setbacks for Meat Workers,” Chicago Tribune , October 25, 1988.

“appear amazingly stupid to you”… “I know very well that you know”: Quoted in Drew, “Regulators Slow Down.”

“to understate injuries, to falsify records”: “Here’s the Beef,” p. 21.

180 every injury and illness at the slaughterhouse: Ibid., pp. 3, 14.

the first log recorded 1,800 injuries… The OSHA log: Ibid., p. 14.

denied under oath: Ibid., p. 15. See also Philip Shabecoff, “OSHA Seeks $2.59 Million Fine for Meatpacker’s Injury Reports,” New York Times , July 22, 1987.

“the best of the best”: Quoted in “Here’s the Beef,” p. 9.

as much as one‑third higher: Ibid., p. 9.

investigators also discovered: Ibid., p. 21.

Another leading meatpacking company: Ibid., pp. 21–22.

“serious injuries such as fractures”: Ibid., p. 8.

180 “one of the most irresponsible and reckless”: Quoted in Donald Woutat, “Meatpacker IBP Fined $3.1 Million in Safety Action; Health Problem Disabled More than 600, OSHA Says,” Los Angeles Times , May 12, 1988.

“the worst example of underreporting”: Assistant Labor Secretary John A. Pendergrass, quoted in Shabecoff, “OSHA Seeks $2.59 Million Fine.”

difficult to prove “conclusively”: “Here’s the Beef,” p. 19.

fined $2.6 million by OSHA: Shabecoff, “OSHA Seeks $2.59 Million.”

fined an additional $3.1 million: Woutat, “Meatpacker IBP Fined $3.1 Million.”

fines were reduced to $975,000: See Christopher Drew, “IBP Agrees to Injury Plan,” Chicago Tribune , November 23, 1988; Marianne Lavelle, “When Fines Collapse: Critics Target OSHA’s Settlements,” National Law Journal , December 4, 1989.

about one one‑hundredth of a percent: According to Robert L. Peterson, IBP’s revenues that year were about $8.8 billion. “IBP’s Presentation at the New York Society of Security Analysts,” Business Wire , October 28, 1988.

a worker named Kevin Wilson: My account of the Wilson case is based upon John Taylor, “Ex‑IBP Worker Gets $15 Million in Damage Award,” Omaha World‑Herald , December 3, 1994; “Opinion,” Kevin Wilson v IBP, Inc., and Diane Arndt , Supreme Court of Iowa, no. 258/95–477, February 14, 1997; “$2 Million Punitive Award Won by Injured Employee,” Managing Risk , March 1997; and “IBP’s Appeal of $2 Million Punitive Award Rejected,” Omaha World‑Herald , October 7, 1997

181 The IBP nurse called them “idiots” and “jerks”: Quoted in Wilson v IBP and Arndt , Iowa Supreme Court.

182 The company later paid him an undisclosed sum: See Morris, “Easy Prey.”

“The first commandment is that only production counts”: A transcript of Murphy’s testimony appears in Andreas, Meatpackers and Beef Barons , pp. 171–83.

little has changed since IBP was caught: For Ferrell’s side of the case, I have relied upon “Plaintiff’s Statement of Specific Disputed Facts and Additional Material Facts,” Michael D. Ferrell v IBP, Inc ., United States District Court for the Northern District of Iowa, Western Division, May 7, 1999.

183 IBP disputes this version: For IBP’s version of events, I have relied upon “Statement of Undisputed Facts in Support of Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment,” Michael D. Ferrell v IBP, Inc. , United States District Court for the Northern District of Iowa, Western Division, March 6, 1999.

“numerous, pervasive, and outrageous”: Quoted in “Labor Board Charges Monfort with Discrimination; Orders Reinstatement, Back Pay, and Union Election,” PR Newswire , April 12, 1990. See also James M. Biers, “Monfort Flouted Labor Laws,” Denver Post , November 4, 1995.

184 Colorado was one of the first states: See Ben Wear, “Lawmakers Seek Cure, Not Band‑Aid; All Sides Cry Foul in Fight to Protect Interests,” Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph , February 3, 1991; Karen Bowers, “The Big Hurt: Truth Is the First Casualty in the Political War over Amendment 11,” Denver Westword , October 19, 1994; and Stuart Steers, “Injured Workers Have Borne the Brunt of Workers’ Comp ‘Reform’ in Colorado,” Denver Westword , July 19, 1996.

185 Under Colorado’s new law: The figures on missing digits and other injuries are from the 1999 Workers’ Compensation Act, State of Colorado.

Congressman Cass Ballenger: See “Congressman Argues for an Overhaul of OSHA,” Business Insurance , July 10, 1995; David Maraniss and Michael Weisskopf, “OSHA’s Enemies Find Themselves in High Places,” Washington Post , July 24, 1995; and Figura, “New OSHA.”

by the late 1990s had already reached an all‑time low: See “Study Finds Decline in Workplace Inspections,” AP, September 5, 1998.

The plant had never been inspected by OSHA: See Maraniss and Weisskopf, “OSHA’s Enemies.”

Congressman Joel Hefley: See “Congressman Argues for an Overhaul”; “Hutchison, Hefley Introduce Proposals in House, Senate to Overhaul OSHA,” Asbestos and Lead Abatement Report , April 7, 1997; and Erin Emery, “Political Novice Alford Faces Hefley,” Denver Post , October 14, 1998.

9. What’s in the Meat

Interviews with two of the nation’s leading experts on Shiga toxin‑producing E. coli – Dr. David Acheson, an associate professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Tufts University Medical School, and Dr. Patricia M. Griffin, chief of the Foodborne Diseases Epidemiology Section, Foodborne and Diarrheal Diseases Branch, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – helped me understand some of the distinctive characteristics and potential dangers of these organisms. A pair of journal articles greatly influenced my view of the role of the fast food and meatpacking industries in spreading disease: Gregory L. Armstrong, Jill Hollingsworth, and J. Glenn Morris, Jr., “Emerging Foodborne Pathogens: Escherichia coli 0157:H7 as a Model of Entry of a New Pathogen into the Food Supply of the Developed World,” Epidemiologic Reviews 18, no. 1 (1996); and Robert V. Tauxe, “Emerging Foodborne Diseases: An Evolving Public Health Challenge,” Emerging Infectious Diseases 3, no. 4 (October/December 1997). Tauxe is the chief of the Foodborne and Diarrheal Diseases Branch at the CDC. Throughout this chapter, the figures on the annual incidence of various foodborne pathogens – as well as on the number of deaths, hospitalizations, and so on – come from the most thorough nationwide study of food poisonings to date: Paul S. Mead, Laurence Slutsker, Vance Dietz, Linda F. McCaig, Joseph S. Bresee, Craig Shapiro, Patricia M. Griffin, and Robert V. Tauxe, “Food‑Related Illness and Death in the United States,” Emerging Infectious Diseases 5, no. 5 (September/October 1999).

For the general reader, the two best books on foodborne pathogens are Spoiled: The Dangerous Truth about a Food Chain Gone Haywire (New York: Basic Books, 1997) and It Was Probably Something You Ate: A Practical Guide to Avoiding and Surviving Foodborne Illness (New York: Penguin, 1999). Nicols Fox is the author of both, and she was extremely generous about sharing her unsettling knowledge with me. Dr. Neal D. Bernard, at the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, told me in gruesome detail what America’s livestock are being fed today. I am grateful to Lee Harding, Nancy Donley, and Mary Heersink – three people whose lives were changed in varying degrees by E. coli 0157:H7 – for speaking to me about their experiences. Donna Rosenbaum, one of the founders of Safe Tables Our Priority, provided much useful information about the meatpacking industry’s role in outbreaks. Heather Klinkhamer, the former program director at STOP, graciously let me rummage through her files and borrow literally hundreds of them.

David Theno and Tim Biela spent a day with me, explaining how currently available technology has helped Jack in the Box reduce the threat of foodborne illness. Steve Bjerklie shared his expertise on the meat industry’s response to food safety issues. For the Hudson Beef outbreak and federal meat recall policy, I relied heavily on the transcripts of two USDA meetings: the National Advisory Committee on Meat and Poultry Inspection meeting held in Washington, D.C., September 10, 1997, and the FSIS Recall Policy Public Meeting held in Arlington, Virginia, September 24, 1997. Jan Sharp, one of the U.S. attorneys in the Hudson Foods case, and Steve Kay, the editor of Cattle Buyers Weekly , were also helpful. David Kroeger, the president of the Midwest Council of the National Joint Council of Food Inspection Locals, spoke to me about the effects of the Streamlined Inspection System during the late 1980s and of the reduced inspections under today’s new HACCP plans. The other USDA meat inspectors that I interviewed were equally informative but preferred not to be named. Felicia Nestor, at the Government Accountability Project, sent me a thick stack of USDA inspection reports given to her by federal whistleblowers. A straightforward account of the effort to create a science‑based system of meat inspection can be found in Food Safety: Risk‑Based Inspections and Microbial Monitoring Needed for Meat and Poultry (GAO Reports, June 1, 1994). The Center for Public Integrity has done a fine job investigating the meatpacking industry’s close ties to members of Congress. One of its reports, Safety Last: The Politics of E. coli and other Food‑Borne Pathogens (Washington, D.C.: Center for Public Integrity, 1998) outlines how public health measures have in recent years been framed to suit the needs of well‑funded private interests.

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193 called Sandra Gallegos: For the investigation of Harding’s illness, I relied on interviews with Lee Harding and Sandra Gallegos, as well as on Julie Collins, “Hudson Beef Recall: How the Link Was Discovered,” Journal of Environmental Health , December 1, 1997; Tom Kenworthy, “Friendly Barbecue May Have Led to Meat Recall,” Washington Post , August 24, 1997; Tom Morgenthau, “Health Pros’ Detective Work Helps Arrest Villain E. coli ,” Portland Oregonian , August 31, 1997; Ann Schrader, “Tracing E. coli to Meat Earns Awards for Workers,” Denver Post , September 18, 1997; and the transcript of the NAC Meat and Poultry Inspection Hearing, September 10, 1997.

194 Colorado was one of only six states: Meat and Poultry Inspection Hearing transcript, p. 396.

primarily to supply hamburgers for the Burger King chain: See Melanie Warner, “How Tyson Ate Hudson,” Fortune , October 27, 1997.

Roughly 35 million pounds of ground beef : See Steve Kay, “Hudson Recall Was Larger Than Reported,” Cattle Buyers Weekly , September 29, 1997. Kay’s estimate may in fact be too conservative, since it is based on a production rate of 400,000 pounds a day. The Hudson Beef plant could actually produce twice that amount daily.

195 roughly 200,000 people are sickened: Derived from the annual numbers cited in Mead et al., “Food‑Related Illness and Death”: 76 million illnesses, 325,000 hospitalizations, and 5,000 deaths.

more than a quarter of the American population: Ibid.

can precipitate long‑term ailments: See James A. Lindsay, “Chronic Sequelae of Foodborne Disease,” Emerging Infectious Diseases 3, no. 4 (October/December 1997).

entirely new kinds of outbreaks are now occurring: See Tauxe, “Emerging Food‑borne Diseases.”

196 a newly emerged pathogen: See Armstrong et al., “Emerging Foodborne Pathogens.”

thirteen large packinghouses now slaughter: Cited in James M. MacDonald and Michael Ollinger, “U.S. Meat Slaughter Consolidating Rapidly,” USDA Food Review , May 1, 1997.

more than a dozen other new foodborne pathogens: Cited in Tauxe, “Emerging Foodborne Diseases.”

infectious agents that have not yet been identified: See “Food‑Related Illness and Death.”

defective softball bats, sneakers, stuffed animals: See Consumer Product Safety Commission, press releases, June 1997–June 1999.

197 7.5 percent of the ground beef samples: The figures on ground beef contamination are from “Nationwide Federal Plant Raw Ground Beef Microbiological Survey, August 1993–March 1994,” United States Deartment of Agriculture, Food Safety and Inspection Service, Science and Technology, Microbiology Division, April 1996.

fatal in about one out of… cases: Mead et al., “Food‑Related Illness and Death.”

“a food for the poor”: David Gerard Hogan, Selling ’Em by the Sack (New York: New York University Press, 1997), p. 22.

“The hamburger habit is just about as safe”: Quoted ibid., p. 32.

198 “nothing but White Castle Hamburgers and water”: By the end of the experiment the student was eating up to two dozen hamburgers a day. Quoted ibid., p. 33; Tennyson, Hamburger Heaven , p. 24.

pork had been the most popular: Interview with James Ratchford, American Meat Institute.

almost half of the employment in American agriculture… annual revenues generated by beef: National Cattlemen’s Beef Association Fact Sheet.

More than two‑thirds of those hamburgers were bought: Cited in David Theno, “Raising the Bar to Ensure Safer Burgers,” San Diego Union‑Tribune , August 27, 1997.

children between the ages of seven and thirteen ate: A survey by McDonald’s once found that children under the age of seven ate 1.7 hamburgers a week; those from seven to thirteen ate 6.2. People from thirteen to thirty ate 5.2; from thirty to thirty‑five, 3.3; from thirty‑five to sixty, 2.6; and over sixty, 1.3. Cited in Boas and Chain, Big Mac , p. 218.

more than seven hundred people in at least four states: See “Update: Multistate Outbreak of Escherichia coli 0157:H7 Infections from Hamburgers – Western United States, 1992–1993,” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report , Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, April 16, 1993; and Fox, Spoiled , pp. 246–68.

199 In 1982 dozens of children were sickened: Nicols Fox offers the best account of this outbreak. See Fox, Spoiled , pp. 220–29.

“the possibility of a statistical association”: Quoted ibid., p. 227.

In the eight years since the Jack in the Box outbreak: I have taken the annual E. coli 0157:H7 numbers from Mead et al., “Food‑Related Illness and Death” – 73,480 illnesses; 2,168 hospitalizations; 61 deaths – and multiplied them by 8.

In about 4 percent of reported E. coli 0157:H7 cases : Cited in Mead et al., “Food‑related Illness and Death.”

About 5 percent of the children who develop HUS: Interview with Dr. Patricia Griffin.

200 the leading cause of kidney failure among children: Cited in “Isolation of E. coli 0157:H7 from Sporadic Cases of Hemorrhagic Colitis – United States,” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report , Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, August 1, 1997.

201 as few as five organisms: Interview with Dr. David Acheson.

The most common cause of foodborne outbreaks has been: See “Outbreak – Georgia and Tennessee.”

the feces of deer, dogs, horses, and flies: See Armstrong et al., “Foodborne Pathogens.”did not eat a contaminated burger: See “Update: Multistate Outbreak.”remains contagious for about two weeks: See Armstrong et al., “Foodborne Pathogens.”

202 E. coli 0157:H7 can replicate in cattle troughs: See Paul Hammel and Henry J. Cordes, “Holes in the Research: E. coli Prompts Few Changes on the Farm from Farm to Fork,” Omaha World‑Herald , December 15, 1997.

About 75 percent of the cattle in the United States: Cited in Mitchell Satchell and Stephen J. Hedges, “The Next Bad Beef Scandal? Cattle Feed Now Contains Things Like Chicken Manure and Dead Cats,” U.S. News & World Report , September 1, 1997.

millions of dead cats and dead dogs: Ibid.

cattle blood is still put into the feed: For the unsettling details of what livestock are now fed, see “Substances Prohibited from Use in Animal Food or Feed; Animal Proteins Prohibited in Ruminant Food; Final Rule,” Part II, Federal Register , June 5, 1997; Ellen Ruppel Shell, “Could Mad‑Cow Disease Happen Here?” Atlantic Monthly , September 1998; and Rebecca Osvath, “Some Feed and Manufacturing Facilities Not Complying with Rules to Prevent BSE, Survey Finds,” Food Chemical News , April 3,2000.

A study published a few years ago: Eric R. Haapapuro, Neal D. Barnard, and Michele Simon, “Review – Animal Waste Used as Livestock Feed: Dangers to Human Health,” Preventive Medicine , September/October 1997.

203 during the winter about I percent of the cattle… as much as 50 percent during the summer: The study was conducted by the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service. Cited in “Study Urges Pre‑Processed Beef Test for E. coli,” Health Letter on the CDC , March 13, 2000.

204 can contaminate 32,000 pounds: Cited in Armstrong et al., “Foodborne Pathogens.”

204 the animals used to make about one‑quarter: See “Relative Ground Beef Contribution to the United States Beef Supply – Final Report,” The American Meat Institute Foundation, in cooperation with the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association,” May 1996.

dozens or even hundreds of different cattle : Cited in Armstrong et al., “Foodborne Pathogens.”

“This is no fairy story and no joke”: Sinclair, Jungle , p. 135.

205 “Meat and food products, generally speaking”: Quoted in Skaggs, Prime Cut , p. 123.

“Men are men”: Quoted in Yeager, Competition and Regulation , p. 208.

“we are paying all we care to pay”: Quoted ibid., p. 205.

A panel appointed by the National Academy of Sciences… another National Academy of Sciences panel: The findings of the first panel were published in a report entitled Meat and Poultry Inspection: The Scientific Basis of the Nation’s Program (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1985). The findings of the second panel appeared as The Future of Public Health (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1988).

206 “Who knows what crisis will be next?”: The chairman of the panel was Richard Remington, professor of preventive medicine and environmental health at the University of Iowa. Quoted in Gregory Byrne, “Panel Laments ‘Disarray’ in Public Health System; Institute of Medicine Panel,” Science , September 23, 1988.

five major slaughterhouses that supplied about one‑fifth: Cited in Daniel P. Puzo, “Does Streamlined Beef Inspection Work?” Los Angeles Times , June 18, 1992.

number of federal meat inspectors would be cut by half: See Knight‑Ridder News Service, “Meat Policy Changed: Plants Won’t Be Inspected As Often,” The Record , November 4, 1988.

A 1992 USDA study of the Streamlined Inspection System: See Don Kendall, “Report Calls for Streamlining Federal Meat Inspections,” AP , September 17, 1990.

207 the accuracy of that study was thrown into doubt: On April 30, 1992, the ABC News show PrimeTime Live broadcast an investigation of the Streamlined Inspection System for Cattle. ABC had obtained corporate documents showing that some USDA visits were known in advance. The show also included footage of meat covered in feces being processed at the Monfort plant in Greeley. For more on conditions at the Greeley plant, see Kelly Richmond, “Unhappy Meals: Colorado Meat Plant Blasted for Disease and Filth,” States New Service , June 11, 1992. For more on the lapses of the SIS‑C and the lack of surprise during USDA visits, see Guy Gugliotta, “USDA Is Sued: Where’s the Beef Report? Public Interest Group Charges System Lets Dirtier, More Dangerous Meat Reach Consumers,” Washington Post , July 10, 1990.