Healing Our World Commentary: Profit or Pain

By Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D.

Profit or Pain - Guess Which One They Choose

If all of us acted in unison as I act individually
there would be no wars and no poverty.
I have made myself personally responsible
for the fate of every human being
who has come my way.
-- Anais Nin

Environmental regulations that govern human, animal, and ecosystem health are necessary to keep industry and government accountable for the vast amounts of chemicals that are released every day and for the safety of our food supply. Such regulations are vital to our survival, yet they often suffer from two fatal flaws.

First, they are usually less stringent than they need to be for fear of impeding the progress of business, and second, they are often created and enforced by people who are the least qualified to understand the issues. This second concern may be putting our health and the health of our planet seriously at risk.

Elected representatives in Colorado (Photo courtesy NREL)

While they claim to rely on expert testimony, those “experts” sometimes have a background working within the industry they are called upon to review and may retain a vested interest, or a biased interest in the matters before them.

A particularly egregious example of this phenomena occurred in December 2001 when a three judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that the U.S. Department of Agriculture cannot require meat processors to adhere to limits on the amount of salmonella contamination present on the meat.

Caroline Smith DeWaal of the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) said that this decision “is clearly taking the harness off the ground meat industry by allowing meat that can be highly contaminated with salmonella to be sold to the public.”

Salmonella bacteria sicken thousands each year, many of whom die from the exposure, especially the young, the old and those with challenged immune systems. In Australia, where food positioning is becoming a national problem, one in 50 people get sick from the bacteria. Toddlers and pre-schoolers are most at risk.

Severe diarrhea is the most common symptom of salmonella poisoning, but to a very young or very old person, this can be deadly.

Conditions ripe for salmonella in an egg production factory (Photo courtesy Farm Sanctuary)

Dr. Katrina Watson, a gastroenterologist and chair of the Digestive Health Foundation in Australia, says her country has not seen some of the worst crises in food contamination that occur in the United States and Europe, where a large and increasing percentage of food is imported from lesser developed nations without strict hygiene rules. Some food imported into the U.S. had been grown in soil fertilized with human sewage, she said.

A person with AIDS is 300 times more likely to become ill if exposed to certain food borne bacteria. Another at risk population is chemotherapy patients and those using anti-rejection drugs after organ transplants. They are very vulnerable to contaminated food.

Food can be contaminated at many stages in its life cycle and not just at the meat packing plant. Poor handling by shippers and supermarkets increases the likelihood of contamination, since meat and products containing meat are often kept at warmer temperatures than required. And how many times have we seen stacks of items destined for the refrigerated shelves sitting in the aisles for hours at supermarkets?

Consumers' demand for fast foods contributes to the problem. Dr. Watson said, "The more the food's been handled - because it's been marinated or half-cooked or it has sauce on - the greater the chance that parts of it have been kept too long at the wrong temperature."

Lab workers test for salmonella (Photo courtesy Michigan Water Research Center)

Salmonella related illness can affect vast numbers of people. In 1994, it is estimated that 224,000 people across the U.S. had gastroenteritis caused by Salmonella enteritidis bacteria. A mixture used to make ice cream was transported in tanker trailers that had previously been used to haul liquid eggs contaminated with the bacteria. This cross contamination was not detected until the ice cream was made and had been distributed across the nation.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) had attempted to shut down a ground beef plant that did not pass a series of salmonella tests. The plant sued and, it seems, has won. Once again, profit reigns supreme and the health of people everywhere has been jeopardized.

Leadership positions within the U.S. Department of Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Agriculture Department require tremendous technical expertise, and many of the staff have advanced graduate degrees. Yet rarely do the leaders of these governmental agencies have the professional experience to justify their decisions.

For example, the current leader of the U.S. Department of the Interior, Gail Norton, is a lawyer who was the attorney general of Colorado. From 1979 to 1983, she was employed by the Mountain States Legal Foundation, which has fought the Equal Rights Amendment, the Environmental Protection Agency, affirmative action, and equal rights for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

The head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Christie Whitman, was the governor of New Jersey. She has a bachelor's degree in government and served under the infamous anti-environmentalist James Watt, Interior Secretary during part of the Regan administration.

Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman (Photo courtesy USDA)

It is odd that to rise to the leadership of agencies, the same professional qualifications required of its workers are unnecessary. The leaders mentioned above wouldn’t have been able to get an entry level technical position within their own agencies, yet they can lead them.

Of course, this is true with political appointments throughout the nation. The head of the Seattle Parks Department was the city’s budget director and President George W. Bush’s current appointee to head the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Sean O'Keefe, was the deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget

As many cultures prepare to celebrate their fall holidays, giving thanks and preparing for a new year, we should also contemplate the priorities of our government and the interests of those chosen to lead us. We wouldn’t tolerate it if our school principles were lawyers instead of educational professionals nor would it be acceptable for a bus driver’s only experience with vehicles to have been managing the bumper cars at the local amusement park.

It is time to take our Earth – and our health - out of the hands of the professional administrators, whose agenda it is to insure its profitable exploitation for shareholders around the world. It is time to put our planet it into the hands of those who are qualified to keep it safe for future generations.

RESOURCES

1. Learn about food safety from the Australian Academy of Science at: http://www.science.org.au/nova/030/030key.htm

2. The USDA has food safety information at: http://www.foodsafety.gov/

3. Read about a salmonella outbreak at: http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/9711/05/salmonella.outbreak/

4. Read about issues with mass produced chicken at: http://www.upc-online.org/spring98/chicken_for_dinner.html

5. The US Centers for Disease Control monitor foodborne illness at: http://www.cdc.gov/communication/tips/foodborne.htm

6. Learn about the problems with food inspection practices at: http://www.whistleblower.org/www/filth.htm

7. Past Healing Our World commentaries have addressed food safety issues in the nation’s slaughterhouses. Check out those articles at: http://www.ens.lycos.com/ens/jun2000/2000L-06-23g.html http://www.ens.lycos.com/ens/may99/1999L-05-31g.html http://ens-news.com/ens/feb2001/2001L-02-23g.html

8. See a guide to keeping your food safe at: http://www.keepkidshealthy.com/schoolage/foodsafety.html

9. Better yet, eliminate meat from your diet completely with the help of Earthsave at: http://www.earthsave.org

10. Find out who your Congressional representatives are and e-mail them. Tell them it is time to stop approving political appointments and to start demanding appointments that are based on skill. If you know your Zip code, you can find them at http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/ziptoit.html. Tell them it is time to end killings like these.

{Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D. is a writer and teacher in Seattle. Please send your thoughts, comments, and visions to him at jackie@healingourworld.com and visit his website at: http://www.healingourworld.com}