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.
"While we are in an office writing up a company because they missed a signature or didn't put down a time, the plant is operating and doing whatever they want," said Trent Berhow, vice chairman of the National Joint Council of Food Inspection Locals.
Questions about the food safety system follow the release of a video surreptitiously recorded by the Humane Society of the United States showing employees at one meat plant pushing downed cows with forklifts and electric prods.
Federal law bars the slaughtering of downed animals as a precaution against mad cow disease and other contaminants tainting the food supply. On Sunday, Westland/Hallmark Meat Company in Chino, Calif., issued the country's largest beef recall.
Most of the raw and frozen meat was probably eaten already, including products sent to the federal school lunch program. There have been no reported injuries.
Yet the massive recall has renewed concerns about the adequacy of the government's food safety system. The Agriculture Department is investigating, and Congress has launched an investigation and plans to hold hearings.
Current and former staff members say the department needs to assign more inspectors to meat plants, and help them stay on the floors monitoring the meat, in order to deter companies from violations like those captured on the videotape.
"It's a cat-and-mouse game between USDA and the plant," said Lester Friedlander, a former inspector. The department, he said, needs to put an inspector in the pens full time to make sure companies don't try to sneak downed cows to slaughter.
The Humane Society taped the Westland/Hallmark operations in October and November. It released the videotape Jan. 30.
In the video, the cattle appeared to show signs of illness after receiving a clean bill of health from inspectors but before being slaughtered. The Agriculture Department ordered a recall because the company did not notify inspectors, as rules require.
Under the rules, inspectors who learn of downed cows can clear them for slaughter if a second inspection reveals that the cow is injured, not diseased.
But Linda A. Detwiler, who coordinated the Agriculture Department's mad cow surveillance program from 1996 to 2002, urged closing that exception because it is difficult for inspectors to differentiate between disease and injury in downed cows.
"That just encourages people to get them up so they don't lose the total value of the animal," said Detwiler, assistant director of the University of Maryland Center for Public and Corporate Veterinary Medicine.
jonathan.rockoff@baltsun.com