Slaughterhouses Must Euthanize Downer Cows, New USDA Rule Says

LOS ANGELES — The U.S Department of Agriculture is telling slaughterhouse veterinary inspectors to ensure cattle are euthanized when they are too sick or injured to stand.

The directive issued Wednesday is meant to keep potentially contaminated meat out of the food supply. It alters current rules that allow so-called downer cows with treatable conditions to receive veterinary care and then be slaughtered for meat.

Consumers Union food safety expert Michael Hansen says the rule change appears to be in reaction to the 2008 abuse allegations at a California slaughterhouse that led to the largest beef recall in U.S. history.

Workers at Chino-based Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. were caught on videotape dragging sick and injured cows with chains and committing other abuses.

Comments

[hulagirrrl]

02:43 AM on 12/28/2010

If any of you believe that this rule is done to prevent abuse, then you are mislead. This rule is about 15 some years late because that is how long Europe is keeping "downed" cows from slaughter and sale, but only because they could and most probably do have mad cow disease. I am not sure how they would diagnose or test before slaughter on regular meat. All I know is that the US for the longest has prevented voluntary testing by farmers and that most countries have stopped importing US beef for the longest time because of the lack of testing. Unfortunately we will probably never know how many people are affected and eventually die of mad cow disease. One of my relatives in Europe has been affected by something that is unexplainable, her brain is showing holes during imaging. She has lost her speech, walk, control of her reflexes and every time I check with the folks she is getting worse. The doctor predicts that eventually her brain will not be able to tell the lungs to function or the heart to beat. She loved eating tartar, (raw beef) and we believe that is a connection. There are many people who are afflicted with something like that, and doctors are not diagnosing. I will wager the same it happening over here.

[TheLadyOphelia]

07:26 PM on 12/27/2010

Well, this is one tiny step in the right direction. The abuse of animals at the factory farms, during their transportation, and at the slaughterhousees is something that should not be happening in our supposed "civilized society". But the dollar has trumped any sort of empathy or morals within this industry.

Yes, meat has been eaten since day one, but the animals were never raised in such inhumane conditions and treated as if they weren't living creatures with feelings and needs. No one can morally justify what is going on in the meat industry today. My meat eating habits are limited to occasional wild game and local free range beef and poultry. I don't eat pigs 'cause I like them too much.

[BuckyJamesDio]

12:19 PM on 12/27/2010

The Downer Cows would be a great name for an emo band.

[crom14]

11:50 AM on 12/25/2010

How about the ones frozen to the cement in the cold ice of winter that are torn from the ice with such a force they are injured severely? Cruel and unjust for the sake of humans.

[Lindsay Mahoney]

09:38 PM on 12/24/2010

Plants are living entities as well, yet we crush them to make juice, rip them out of the ground, pluck them from trees, combine them, bug spray them, genetically modify them...etc..etc...etc...etc but yet no one speaks up in their defense! After we are banned from eating meat, we will be banned from eating plants, drinking water, and breathing air......may sound silly but we are heading there.

[PaiaGirl]

03:36 PM on 12/25/2010

You have completely missed the point.

We've been eating meat for millenia, but it is only since the advent of the corporate food factory, that animals have been slaughtered in such inhumane and unsanitary fashions.

I eat meat but only from our local (family owned) slaughter house where I know that conditions are sanitary and they don't mistreat the animals.

There is no excuse for the abuses that take place in factory-farm, corporate slaughter houses.  And it is unhealthy for us who eat the mean.

You do realize, don't you, that they spray-wash the carcasses with high intensity jets and wash the last little bits of meat clinging to the bones into a kind of sewer-like drain that strains out the meat which then is mixed into your "hamburger"  YUK!

[JoeTroll]

04:12 PM on 12/25/2010

This is about keeping contaminated meat out of the food supply. Jumping from that to banning meat is more than a little reactionary.

[Charles Elk]

11:34 PM on 12/23/2010

The title momentarily made me think the cows in question may have had an extra chromosome.

[JoeTroll]

04:13 PM on 12/25/2010

I just thought they weren't jolly enough.

[Charles Elk]

12:15 AM on 12/24/2010

Go back to watching ZooTube and leave us real humans be.

[jumbotron16]

01:38 AM on 12/24/2010

I had to fan you for that.

[Laxsmi de Potrero]

10:45 PM on 12/23/2010

and we expect them to do what with those euthanized animals?
.

yeah sure.

[jumbotron16]

02:57 AM on 12/24/2010

Dog and cat food?

[PaiaGirl]

03:37 PM on 12/25/2010

you HOPE!

[hulagirrrl]

02:48 AM on 12/28/2010

Dog and cat food, the bones are ground to be used in soap and gelatin or returned to animals as feed, and that part is scary because if a downed cow should have mad cow disease and is returned in the food cycle then you know what'll happen? Yes, we will have more downed cows.

[SteveDenver]

09:46 PM on 12/23/2010

I think the G O P should be required to do the same.

[soisay]

06:33 PM on 12/23/2010

Has anyone here read Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" written 104 years ago (1906)? These issues were supposed to be resolved by the USDA regulations, inspections, and government enforcement. It had given America a long proud history of untainted foods.

Industry captive regulators and inspectors have seen high profits, high returns on capital, and diminished values (even dangers) to consumers. Yet the FDA will forbid the sale of certain unpasteurized products, certain vitamins or supplements, certain farm products even if the consumer is willing to sign a full disclosure and waiver during purchase.

[SteveDenver]

09:48 PM on 12/23/2010

The documentary FOOD INC. talks about how slaughter houses went from horror shows to one of the best possible careers, and then as corporate production took over it deteriorated into one of the most hazardous occupations in the world due to the speed at which carcasses must be processed, the sharp instruments used that can destroy a human in seconds, and the high levels of ready contamination that make workers ill.

[hulagirrrl]

02:51 AM on 12/28/2010

If I was in charge of education I would make that movie mandatory for every High School class in this nation. At least then our future generation would stop the nonsense or think more than what the majority currently is doing. I loved that movie.

[rikster]

05:06 PM on 12/23/2010

like that will happen...

[Maverickpower]

02:27 PM on 12/23/2010

Really , I am so surprised , that would be the HUMANE thing to do . When will we realize how devastating our appetite for cheap food is we just might figure out what's making us sick ?

[SteveDenver]

09:49 PM on 12/23/2010

The "Dollar Menu" is not maintained with such concerns.

[hulagirrrl]

02:57 AM on 12/28/2010

I don't think it is our appetite for cheap food, because food is not really cheap. The profit margin that must rise for investors is the problem. Food is traded as a commodity, that is a problem. Advertising makes us believe that we are living good if we have a steak at least once a week, that is the problem. In the end, all of these things are controlled by the money changers, and they do not care, because they make enough money to get the best grass fed cattle meat from Brazil, Chile or where ever they think it would be fashionable to by beef at the moment. The moneychangers are the root of all evil.

[Dave Harrison]

04:15 PM on 12/29/2010

Some of the best beef in the world comes from Japan.
http://www.japanguidebook.com/articles/expensive-japanese-beef-89.html
Read the article to see how the cattle are raised and treated there. $500.00 steak anyone?

[Jennifer Colley]

01:12 PM on 12/23/2010

An important documentary to watch is "Earthlings".

[glowgirl]

06:54 PM on 12/23/2010

It is a great documentary and available to watch, in its entirety, free online,

[TheOccasionalBelletrist]

08:13 PM on 12/23/2010

I saw recently that Ellen Degeneres recommended this film during her Katie Couric interview, and admitted that it made Food Inc. look like a Disney movie. I had to stop watching Food Inc. several times to gather myself I was so upset. But I am determined to watch Earthlings even though I have already been long convinced of its message.

[SukiTheCat]

09:15 AM on 12/23/2010

that's so sad...