USDA's Office of Inspector General issued a report on the department's "National Residue Program for Cattle." It found gaping holes in the safety of American beef production, including residue of drugs, poisons and heavy metals in the meat we eat.Information from: Audit Report 24601-08-KC
"Based on our review, we found that the national residue program is not accomplishing its mission of monitoring the food supply for harmful residues." The audit revealed that USDA's Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS), along with the FDA and EPA, "have not established thresholds for many dangerous substances (e.g., copper or dioxin), which has resulted in meat with these substances being distributed in commerce." Even worse, the federal government does not attempt to recall meat, "even when its tests have confirmed the excessive presence of veterinary drugs," the audit said.
Currently regulations allow the feeding of beef products to cattle (a potential way to transmit "mad cow disease") in three ways: calve formula containing bovine blood, restaurant scraps in cattle feed, and the feeding of chicken manure to beef cattle - the manure contains spilled pieces of chicken feed, which can include beef byproducts.
And now we learn that some US beef is contaminated with heavy metals like copper and arsenic, antibiotics like Flunixin, penicillin, and Ivermectin, and a host of pesticides - all of which are used in concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), better known as factory farms.
