"The thing that bugs me is that people think the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is protecting them -- it isn’t."

• After the Jack-in-the-Box outbreak in 1992/93 in which at least 732 people in five states became ill, 195 were hospitalized and 4 children died after eating USDA- inspected hamburger, Jill Hollingsworth, assistant administrator of USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection System said "We will take no action because this meat does not violate USDA standards."
  
  
• Affidavits from a Government Accountability Project yielded testimony such as "Much of what USDA calls wholesome today would have been condemned in 1984 ... Meat whose disease symptoms previously would have forced it to be condemned, or at most approved for dog food, now gets the USDA seal of approval for consumers."
  
  
• Salmonella and Campylobacter bacteria contamination of processed chickens here is so bad that a former USDA microbiologist said the "final product is no different than if you stuck it in the toilet and ate it."
  
  
• In 1990, the FDA finally redesignated the egg as a hazardous food due to Salmonella contamination and resultant food poisoning. Eggs would have to be refrigerated, even during transportation, to slow the growth of bacteria in contaminated eggs. In 1996, the USDA revealed that the rules for refrigeration had never been enforced because the egg industry felt they were too restrictive. To compound an already bad situation, the United Egg Producers influenced Congress to deny the USDA funds for its Salmonella program. This program is now dead.
  
  
• Forty percent of the antibiotics used in the U.S. are used in agriculture. This use has played a major role in the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Other nations such as the United Kingdom tightly controlled the use of antibiotics in agriculture as early as 1970, but the U.S. has still failed to act due to industry pressure.
  
  
• The Monsanto saga with rBGH is particularly flagrant. Monsanto covered up an early animal study which showed problems with rBGH. Former Monsanto employees involved in the rBGH project were hired by the FDA where they played key roles in the approval of this hormone and in the decision not to allow labels stating a product was rBGH-free. Canadian and European scientists reexamined the scientific literature and recently concluded that rBGH harms cows and posed major risks of cancer, particularly of the breast and prostate, in humans. These studies caused the U.S. to drop its effort to force Europe to accept rBGH products. It’s time now to stop the use of this hormone here and to close this horrible chapter of lies and deception.
  
  
• Perhaps mad-cow disease poses the worst threat, but the jury is still out. We have made the same mistakes as England, and livestock continue to be fed products made from dead animals that may have been contaminated. The music group, Dire Straits, has a lyric "Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt" and denial certainly applies to federal agencies and the meat industry regarding mad-cow disease.