A shortage of slaughterhouse inspectors has weakened the federal food safety net, making it easier for sick animals to enter the food supply undetected, according to four current and former government inspectors.
Their comments follow the recall last weekend of 143 million pounds of beef processed at a California slaughterhouse that is accused of sending lame cows to slaughter.
In some cases, so few inspectors are on site that companies can easily track their whereabouts, using walkie-talkies to clean up violations and hustle sick animals to slaughter, the sources said.
"One day, I walked up to a plant supervisor, and somebody came on his radio and said, `Watch out, Stan Painter is on his way,'" said Stan Painter, chairman of the union representing 6,500 existing government inspectors. One union official said the U.S. Department of Agriculture needs hundreds more inspectors to stay on top of meat plant operations.
While acknowledging that the USDA is short about 500 inspectors, Agriculture Department officials said the agency was rapidly closing the gap and made sure that every one of the 6,200 food plants throughout the country had inspection posts manned by substitutes.
"We have a strong system, and we know the inspection tasks are being performed," said Amanda Eamich, a spokeswoman for the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service. Paperwork reviews, she said, were a valuable safeguard along with visual inspections.
The meat industry dismissed the allegations of current and former inspectors as "outrageous," saying the government monitored its activities more intensively than any other.
"No other industry in agriculture or in other industries, from health care to auto manufacturing, has inspectors on site at all times," Mark Dopp, senior vice president of regulatory affairs and general counsel at the American Meat Institute, said in a statement.
But inspectors interviewed said that because of vacancies in the ranks, inspectors are often forced to do the work of two or three staff members, making it all the more difficult for them to catch signs of disease either in animals before slaughter, or in meat that has been butchered.
"There are so many steers and there aren't enough cops," said Don Ridenour, a retired USDA inspector and compliance officer from Essex, Md.
Meanwhile, inspectors are often sidelined checking paperwork that slaughterhouses must file, instead of making sure that animals are healthy for slaughter and that the meat is safe for the food supply, the inspectors said.
