Green by Red: Where's the tainted beef?

If you eat beef, you’ve almost certainly consumed JBS beef. That’s because Brazil-based JBS is the largest beef producer in the world, and the third-largest U.S. beef packer.

Here in the U.S., JBS has dramatically expanded a “voluntary” recall of beef “that may be contaminated with E. coli O157:H,” the USDA reports. USDA rates the recall Type 1, meaning the product presents a “high” health risk, meaning people are dying from it. The recall originally involved 41,000 pounds; now the company is trying to call in 421,000 pounds. (For those of you crazies who think in terms of Quarter Pounders, that's 1.7 million QPs.)

Meanwhile, down in Brazil, JBS is being investigated by the Brazilian government for “bribing of public officials, racketeering, corruption, fraud and collusion,” Reuters reports. Not long ago, Greenpeace called out the company for knowingly buying cows raised on illegally cleared rainforest land.

The plant where the outbreak originated is located in Colorado, but by no means are Coloradans beef-eaters the only ones at risk. As for the U.S. recall, those 421,000 pounds were “distributed nationally and internationally,” the USDA reports, without adding which states and nations received it. Let’s all bow our heads for a moment and ponder what it means that a single beef-processing plant could produce nearly half a million pounds of beef in a day—and send it out to points unknown across the globe. Like a butterfly’s wings, a little bullshit in a massive slaughterhouse can have tremendous global impact.

What's almost as freaky is that the tainted beef got processed way back on April 21—meaning it has been circulating in the food system for three months. Already, 18 people in multiple, but unspecified states are known to have been infected. But the CDC reckons that for every confirmed E. coli case in an outbreak like this one, 35-50 people more actually comes down with it: That’s means that between 630 and 900 people are already ill from this one JBS incident, and the number of infected will almost surely grow. Very little of the suspect beef will likely ever actually come back -- most of it will be consumed by unwitting consumers.

As we reviewed last post, this is because recalls are voluntary. There is no requirement legally that the products be tracked down by the processor and yanked from store shelves, out of restaurant freezers, out of community and church group food lockers. There’s no requirement that grocers or chefs not use contaminated products.

If you somehow still think this is all just a fluke, let's look at how the USDA tests slaughterhouses for E. coli:

• The agency creates incentives for plants to use interventions (e.g. chemical sprays or hot water rinses).
• The agency avoids collecting data or performing tests that would show if these technologies are not being used effectively at the largest beef slaughter plants.
• The agency avoids enforcement of regulations at these large plants when it learns of unsafe production practices and contamination coming from these plants.

In other words, the USDA’s inspection program is much more geared to protecting the profitability of the meat giants than it is to protecting the public health. Gigantic meat companies like JBS, Tyson, and Cargil couldn’t exist without food-safety regime as toothless as this one.