1. The Automated Jungle By Jeremy Rifkin

2. The Jungle 1904 Upton Sinclair wrote novel The Jungle about the meat packing industry based in Chicago. The Jungle exposed the truth about the conditions in the slaghterhouses, sausage was made with spoiled meat doused in glycerin and borax. Meat would be picked up off the floor, stored in leaking rooms infested with rats, both live and poisend. The fallout from this book caused congress to pass the 1906 Pure Food and Drug act, as well as meat inspection act. This act gave the USDA authority to place requirements of safe and clean conditions and equipment. The act also made it mandatory to inspect livestock and carcasses for interstate commerce.

3. The 1960’s After the Food and Drug act of 1906 very little was reported on the conditions of packing plants, as most Americans believed the meat that they consumed was safe for them. In the 1960’s Iowa Congressman Neal Smith called attention to packing plants that were unregulated by the federal government. Plants by Armour, Swift, and Wilson found a loophole to escape inspection by only distributing within the same state as the plant. In twenty two states there was no requirment of ante or post mortem livestock inspection, eight of those states had no inspection requirements at all. Many plants purchased what they called 4D livestock, dead, diseased, dying, and disabled, to cut expenses.

4. This forced President Johnson in 1967 to pass the Wholesale Meat Act, that made the states adopt inspection standards to match federal standards. This was based on the assumption that federal guidelines were adequate for the safety of meat. In 1985 a report by the National Academy of Sciences concluded that the federal guidelines were not enough to protect the public. The NAS recommendations were never acted on. The USDA and meatpacking industry worked together to create a new inspection procedure that weakened the previous regulations.

5. The SIS The USDA and meat packers are right now developing a new process called Streamlined Inspection System. The SIS removes the role of a federal meat inspector, and is expected to increase production by 40%. The SIS calls for packinghouse workers to conduct random inspections, sometimes only looking at three out of 1000 carcasses Inspectors cannot check equipment for microbes, condemn early cases of disease, check kidneys, lungs, tongues, and heads, tag for arthritis or insects, or inspect the rendering area. The carcass is viewed from a mirror 15 feet away, while it moves by. USDA officials say that beef does not need to be free of all contaimenats, but be aesthetically acceptable.

6. The workforce made up of mostly immigrants and illegals cannot bother to trim impurities off a carcass because it will slow the proccess down and could cost them there job. The quality control workers often don’t speak English and are barely given training to recognize any infections. The USDA responded to these charges by recomending that consumers make sure to cook their meat well. The SIS standards make fit for human consumtion meat that would previously be condemned. Half of all salmonella outbreaks can be traced to meat and poultry. This attributed to abcess and fecal contamination of carcasses.

7. Diseases Bovine Spongeform Encephalopathy or Mad Cow Disease Bovine Leukemia Virus, can infect human cells, and is linked with human leukemia. Bovine Immunodeficiency Virus, can infect human cells, may have a malignant role. According to a 1991 USDA study BIV is widespread in beef and dairy cattle. No conclusive evidence on whether it can lead human sera to be HIV positive.

8. COSTS New meat inspection standards have lead to the mistreatment of livestock and workers. Other countries are adopting the American standard. The worlds beef industry is being consolidated into a single globalized complex. Negative effects on both economies and ecosystems.