36 MILLION pounds...that's how much turkey was recalled by the agri-business corporate giant Cargill this week potentially laced with antibiotic-resistant salmonella, all of it from a single massive processing plant in Arkansas. It's one of the most massive food recalls in history.
Do you have some of the recalled turkey in your freezer? Click here to find out chances are some of us do as the amount is enough to fill several floors of the Empire State building.
Already, the tainted turkey has sickened at least 77 people and killed one. The CDC reckons that for every reported case of food poisoning, 38 go unreported. That means that the total number of people affected could be more like 3,000.
And more will almost surely fall ill. In a 2004 critique of the USDA's "voluntary" system for managing food-borne illness outbreaks, the GAO estimated that companies recover only about 36 percent of targeted products in a typical recall. In a press release, Cargill revealed that the suspect product emerged from its Arkansas facility between Feb. 20 and Aug. 2. How much of that is still sitting in people's freezers—and will remain there through this "voluntary recall," ready for the next grill-out? The USDA has released a dizzying list of the brand names that Cargill uses to market its ground turkey. None of them contain the word "Cargill"; the company instead opts for handles like "Shady Brook Farms" and "Honeysuckle" and likes to throw around the adjective "natural."
You would think selling this poison junk would be a crime right? But no, selling foods laced with deadly salmonella is NOT illegal! because salmonella is not classified by the federal government as something that is illegal to distribute.
From WebMD
Dec. 15, 2010 -- The first government estimates of food-borne illnesses in a decade find that one in six Americans gets sick, 128,000 people are hospitalized, and 3,000 people die each year after eating tainted food.
“These illnesses are associated with billions in health care costs and also have a substantial human cost in severe illnesses and in some cases, long-term health effects that linger after the initial illness subsides,”
Our food system has been another casualty of the 30 year trend to reduce the size of government and eliminate regulations that is the mantra of the republican party. When you reduce the size of government you increase the size of corporations who now retain almost absolute power over most aspects of our lives.
What can we do? Well, we can choose not to purchase animal products from sources that purchase from factory farms...difficult because the US is a 100% factory farm nation with almost total factory farm penetration. I advocate to not eat the stuff at all as animal products, especially meat are bad for your health and it's production is one of the major causes of climate change
Before you go check your freezer, you might also want to Sign this Petition! from Food and Water Watch requesting that the US congress pass a Fair Farm Bill (pdf)l in 2012 which would reduce the influence of massive agri-business corporations on our food supply.