It shouldn't have to come to people dying or losing their life savings for management to be held responsible. The voters of this country, of this community, should need to be smacked in the face with a decaying hunk of meat before understanding that the "good old boys" have hijacked the Good Ship Lollipop for their own bottom lines. Misfeasance and malfeasance are two different things but both can lead to a very unpleasant criminal trial. I suspect that nothing however could be as unpleasant as facing kidney failure. Premeditated murder by a gun or murder by corporate negligence is the same thing in my book even if the law may not agree with me. I don't care if upper management pressures middle management from their lofty white carpeted offices and throws profit and loss statements in their faces and threatens to fire them. Quit. Just quit. It isn't worth it. Integrity and a backbone aren't bad things to step into the coffin of poverty holding onto. JBS management needs to be held accountable for their bad practices and questionable history in a criminal court if negligent. No political white-washing. Hopefully the related records are not going through a shredder at this very moment. I wonder how chipper their public relations person will feel when they look in the mirror in the morning. Or the professor that called this a minor bump.
Egad something is rotten in Denmark. Have we given birth to the bastardisation of ethics fathered by Greed? Please let this be an isolated incident.
12 hospitalised in connection with E. coli in beef | Greeley Tribune
Egad something is rotten in Denmark. Have we given birth to the bastardisation of ethics fathered by Greed? Please let this be an isolated incident.
12 hospitalised in connection with E. coli in beef | Greeley Tribune
WASHINGTON — At least 12 people, two of them suffering kidney failure, have been hospitalised in connection with a possible E. coli outbreak in beef suspected of having sickened people in nine states, federal health officials said Wednesday.
The victims may have become ill after eating beef produced by JBS of Greeley, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. The number of people reported ill so far is 23.
Another addendum from the Tribune article
As part of the recall, The Kroger Co. said earlier this week that it is recalling packages of meat with “sell by” dates of April 27 to June 1 in the Cincinnati-Dayton region that includes northern Kentucky and southeastern Indiana; and in western Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, Illinois and eastern Missouri. The company said the suspect beef was sold under its store brands in more than a dozen states.
Soopers and City Market is Kroger. Now we have a label to potentially boycott. I'm bummed. I like the fact Soopers employs senior clerks. Maybe they will find another supplier for their label and upgrade to an organic beef line and give shopper's a better choice and better price than Safeway.
You know how they'll spin this. They will utter the word's,
"At least you can live with one kidney". Dialisis is there for you if you so choose, wouldnt wan't to pressure you into anything.
Or was that liver? No! Spleen. Damn American school system, there to blame as I am unable to remember what was to blame originally.
Well a company with a crisis and a PR gorilla worth their bananas would already have a crisis scenario developed and all they need to do is pull down the binder off the shelf and spin out the precut plan. We've seen some of this already I suspect. The first antibiotic is to downgrade the problem. The Tribune Cub Reporter either was guided to call the meat industry professor (whose views are likely known in the industry) to get that quotation, has never written for big league media (they get the whole story not just the press piece), or perhaps the Professor was guided to call the Cub. Either way that speed bump comment was likely a PR manipulation. Now that things have gotten worse and the facts are becoming more damaging the other small antibiotic JBS is using is the "make JBS the pseudo-victim". Another deflation of the image hit on JBS JBS's release has been saying it was a certain cut of meat and suggesting in the undertext that maybe someone else turned it into hamburger and therefore they, JBS, has cleaner hands--it is in the distribution chain. Then the hero card gets played where they voluntarily recalled more meat... although they really didn't have to. I think now that this has very serious implications we will see this taking the lead in their Public Relations strategy. Just a hunch. Then will come the PR on just how valuable JBS is to the local economy and how many jobs it provides. I could be wrong but I doubt it. The character of this company itself is not healthy. They need to take accountability and fix their practices.
This is from hamburger, cook your meat and you won't have anything to worry about. Companies like JBS have actually won lawsuits against restaurants for not cooking the meat properly when serving customers. JBS should be accountable and so should the consumer for assuming they can eat that hamburger red in the middle with no consequences even though every package says how to cook it. E-coli is present in every bovine that is processed no matter if it's at a family slaugherhouse, a large one like this, or at your so called "natural" plants. It can and will from time to time make it to the final product. When you are dealing with hamburger don't skimp on the cooking. Get it brown.
Since I am not an expert on the topic I can't say yea or nay to your facts. Although it would be common sense if you are correct that consumers be thoroughly educated to brown hamburger. I certainly haven't come across that literature on the topic in my lifetime.
Which leads me to a couple thoughts--if what you say is true and I have no reason to suspect your thoughts on the issue, then whose responsibility is it to educate the consumers about a product that can cause serious damage? Is it the company putting out the product. After all we require alcohol and tobacco products to be labeled as to the consequences of their misuse. Then again eating too much fresh nutmeg or bad mushrooms can cause serious problems, even death, and these products are not labeled. Interesting question for this aspect.
However on the hand if E. Coli resides in a certain percentage of beef then surely there is a testing process that can spot it in the food chain. Whose responsibility is it to see that the meat is tested and at what point into the food chain does it get tested?
Your comments make me think more about why the questions are being raised on how long it took the recall to happen. It makes sense that this would be the bigger issue--the slow response. Unless of course there is an on site test which should have caught it before it left the plant.
Then again Japan refused to accept JBS beef from certain plants so I am assuming the E. Coli levels at those plants must have been much greater than at others and the risk to the public therefore greater. Which would lead me to conclude that internal practices are still suspect and there is more than one pathway for E. Coli to enter the beef product food chain. Because otherwise, if it were only the issue you cite, then the risk factor at any plant would be the same per head of cattle processed.
So JBS isn't off the hook in my book.
E-Coli exists in every beef and actually human beings as well. Every company in the supply chain should be responsible (and are required by USDA to test) for E-Coli during their stage in the process. This could be as many as 4-5 companies or a single company. The general rule is to brown your hamburger (since e-coli is a surface bacteria there is no need for the same rule to apply to steak), but officially it is 160 degrees internal temperature to eliminate the bacteria IF it does exist in your hamburger. The slow response for the recall is unexplainable to me as well. USDA should be held accountable for this as that is their responsibility. There are indeed multiple ways for e-coli to end up in product besides contamination at the time of slaughter. There can be cross-contamination with other product, lack of cleaning at any of the facilities that handle product, employee contamination, water contamination, etc. As for labeling all hamburger should have labeling stating how to cook the product. Check it out in freezer or at the store next time you are there. As for the Japan issue most of the Japanese bans on US meat from any company are knee-jerk political moves (most do not revolve around E-coli as much as documentation and the mad-cow fiasco) much like Russia with US chicken. Sorry to skip around so much with the post, but had a lot of points to put out there.
Well come to think of it I did know that Steak Tartare (frequently made from ground round) was off the PC list. I rather associated that with the salmonella threat from eggs though. Thanks for the background information. I have learned something new about Mr. E. Coli I wasn't aware of before. Personally I might use five pounds of hamburger in a year and always buy fresh organic (for the taste as much as the conceptualization of increased safety). JBS is being rather quiet on the topic though which may mean they feel they are off the public hook. The only question I have now is why is this the "responsibility" of the USDA. As a regulator I would consider it their "responsibility" to ensure the company's practices are responsible. That makes it a double check standard rather than a single check. I agree most bans on meat and other products tend to be trade barriers and protectionism. But I still bemoan the fact that fresh food should be fresh and local as much as possible. Bigger systems multiply the risk to the individual consumer rather than dilute it. Plus the United States banning Brits cattle back in the 80's and 90's was a prudent consumer protection move--as they knew the protein prions of Mad Cow Disease were likely ending up in British cattle feed and had warned the Brits regulatory system of concerns. Thanks for the info!