This is one of those what-the-fuck headlines, folks, courtesy of Aviva Shen.
Let’s go through the article, step-by-step, and unmask the crazy a little.
Food regulators recently uncovered horsemeat masquerading as beef in Burger Kings, school cafeterias, and hospitals across Europe and the UK, prompting multiple product recalls and widespread horror. The horsemeat scandal has not touched the US, and many experts and journalists have rushed to reassure Americans that their burgers are safe from horse contamination.
Well that’s good. Our burgers are 100% Mr. Ed-free.
But compared to the dangerous pathogens hiding in US-produced meat, Americans might want to consider replacing their beef patties with European horsemeat. The debacle has exposed weaknesses in the EU’s food safety procedures. However, horsemeat poses a negligible health risk. There have been no reported deaths or illnesses caused by this contamination. Though a harmful horse painkiller called bute was found in 8 of the 206 horses, a human would have to eat more than 500 burgers made entirely of horsemeat to ingest a human dose.
Pathogens can hide in any meat: horse, pig, dog, deer, gator—any meat. Horsemeat isn’t some special type of antibacterial meat.
On the other side of the Atlantic, the average American consumes roughly 270 pounds of meat per year, and it’s unlikely that horsemeat is in the mix. There is, however, plenty of evidence that many Americans are inadvertently eating a side of deadly bacteria like salmonella or e. coli with their burgers. According to Center for Disease Control estimates, 48 million Americans get sick, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die from foodborne illnesses every year. In comparison, the entire European Union had roughly 45,000 illnesses and 32 deaths from contaminated food in 2008. That means foodborne illness strikes 15 percent of Americans each year, but only .00009 percent of Europeans.
You’re trying to tell me only 32 people died from food poisoning in the EU last year?
That’s a figure that’s stunningly, and embarrassingly, full of shit.
The report also gives an overview of foodborne outbreaks in 2008: 5,332 were recorded, affecting over 45,000 people and causing 32 deaths.
That’s what I found at the source. That figure is only versus foodborne outbreaks, versus the American number which is for every single case of food poisoning.
It would be like comparing the number of whooping cough deaths versus the number of deaths from the common cold. There’s no comparison.
In fact:
Campylobacteriosis remained the most frequently reported zoonotic infection in humans across the European Union, with 190,566 cases notified in 2008 (down from 200,507 in 2007). In foodstuffs, Campylobacter, which can cause diarrhea and fever, was mostly found in raw poultry meat. In live animals, Campylobacter was found in poultry, pigs and cattle. Salmonella, the second most reported zoonotic infection in humans, decreased significantly for the fifth consecutive year, with 131,468 cases in 2008 compared to 151,998 in 2007, a 13.5 percent decrease.
That sounds like a hell of a lot more than 45,000 cases and 32 deaths.
American meat also often exceeds levels of contamination considered unacceptable in most of the developed world. Mexico refused a shipment of American beef in 2008 because it exceeded Mexico’s upper regulatory limit for copper contamination. Because the US has no such restrictions, the beef returned to the US to be sold to Americans instead.
Mexico is concerned about copper in beef, even though their water is undrinkable.
But food safety regulators continue to avert their eyes when confronted with the appalling conditions in which the vast majority of American meat is produced. The New York Times highlighted the regulatory failure after a 2007 e. coli outbreak: Within weeks of the Cargill outbreak in 2007, U.S.D.A. officials swept across the country, conducting spot checks at 224 meat plants to assess their efforts to combat E. coli. Although inspectors had been monitoring these plants all along, officials found serious problems at 55 that were failing to follow their own safety plans. […] In the weeks before [an e. coli outbreak], federal inspectors had repeatedly found that Cargill was violating its own safety procedures in handling ground beef, but they imposed no fines or sanctions, records show. After the outbreak, the department threatened to withhold the seal of approval that declares ‘U.S. Inspected and Passed by the Department of Agriculture.’
Wow…government regulators can’t even manage to inspect meat, and you want these people in charge of our healthcare? BRILLIANT
These laws became popular after a Humane Society video documented a California slaughterhouse routinely abusing and killing sick cattle in 2008. The video triggered the largest beef recall in US history and resulted in a $500 million settlement, the largest penalty ever awarded for an animal abuse case. In response to the video, President Obama also banned the slaughter of these so-called “downer” cows, which have an increased risk of contracting mad cow disease and bacterial infections like e. coli. He did, however, lift the ban on horsemeat in the US last year.
Well, it’s good to see the President has nothing better to do than to watch Humane Society videos and pass laws banning what kind of cows can be killed and eaten. Who does he think he is, Moses?
It’s good to see our President is allowing us to eat horsemeat too. I mean, he’s had dog, so horsemeat is nothing.
Now the job of convincing Americans to eat this government-approved meat begins!
