“Today, the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), emboldened by the alarmist and unfounded food safety concerns that they’ve generated, is now asking a Federal court to prohibit veterinarians in federally inspected meat plants from exercising medical judgment to determine whether some livestock are fit for consumption.
In meat plants, all livestock must be evaluated by federal veterinarians before they are processed. Animals that cannot walk may not be processed. However, some livestock can walk when they arrive, but after passing inspection, may become non-ambulatory. In those very small instances in which this occurs, USDA permits veterinarians to determine whether these animals cannot walk due to an ailment like a broken leg or simple exhaustion or whether there is a different cause that would require these animals to be euthanized. This is appropriate discretion to give these veterinarians.
While HSUS would have the American public believe that somehow an animal with a broken ankle is at some dramatically increased risk of BSE, such a simplistic assertion is absurd and should be disregarded as part of their larger agenda to keep this story alive and their name in the news. How is it is possible that an animal could be initially evaluated as healthy , become non-ambulatory in the next moment and somehow become 50 times more likely to have BSE , as HSUS alleges? It is simply not possible and experts in the field will attest to this.
No company benefits by behaving this way. The consequences of disregarding federal rules and industry best practices are enormous, as we’ve clearly witnessed. We reject the notion that this is somehow indicative of a larger problem. We benefit by handling animals humanely and producing safe and wholesome products . By contrast, it seems that HSUS believes it benefits by trying to take an isolated animal welfare problem and turn it into a food safety scare.
Finally, we pose a question: can an organization that has failed in its mission to protect the well-being of animals, as shown by their failure to report for months to USDA or to the plant what they observed in the Hallmark/Westland case, be taken seriously about food safety?”
Source: AMI, Patrick Boyle