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Saturday, February 23, 2013


Horse meat in the US? Unlikely, but tests are rare


Leonhard Foeger / Reuters


An employee of the microbiological laboratory of the Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety prepares a sample of minced meat in Vienna this week. The samples of minced meat are tested for the presence of horse meat as a precaution. United States officials say it's highly unlikely the scandal will reach U.S. consumers.
By JoNel Aleccia, Staff Writer, NBC News

Europe’s scandal over horse meat hidden in beef products -- including recalls of Nestle ravioli and Birds Eye chili con carne -- has renewed questions about whether Americans unwittingly could be eating equine products as well.

U.S. Department of Agriculture regulators say it’s highly unlikely that beef adulterated with horse meat could make it to the nation’s dinner plates because no domestic suppliers currently slaughter horses and the agency has strict labeling and inspection standards for imported meat.

But agency officials also acknowledge privately that species testing for meat imported into the U.S. is performed typically only when there’s a reason to question a shipment.
And a Florida company that supplies the only validated tests for horse meat in food has been slammed with nearly 1,000 requests in recent weeks for its $500 kits -- including orders from major U.S. meat producers.

“It’s becoming a little hectic,” said Natalie Rosskopf, administrative director of Elisa Technologies Inc. of Gainesville. “There was no call for horse testing a month ago. Nothing.”

Continental Europe has been roiled recently by reports of horse meat masquerading as beef in frozen burgers and prepared foods, including frozen dinners and pastas. This week, Nestle announced it was removing chilled pasta products produced by a German supplier, including Buitoni Beef Ravioli and Beef Tortellini, from stores in Italy and Spain, and a lasagna product from France. On Friday, frozen food maker Birds Eye said it would withdraw products including chili con carne from Britain and Ireland because tests detected traces of horse DNA.

The trouble with horse meat hidden in beef is partly a health concern. Meats taken from store shelves in Britain and Germany had traces of a powerful equine painkiller, phenylbutazone, or “bute,” which is banned in animals destined for human food, tests showed.

But it’s also about trust, especially in the U.S., where many shudder at the mere thought of eating horse meat and the deception would raise even more suspicion about a company’s practices.

“If a company is willing to commit fraud, I can’t imagine that food safety is the biggest thing on their agenda,” said Bill Marler, a Seattle lawyer and food safety expert who publishes a blog focused on the industry.
In fact, boneless beef adulterated with horse meat -- and with kangaroo -- did make it to the U.S. more than 30 years ago, when mislabeled meat from Australia led to the impounding and testing of 66 million pounds of the product, according to old USDA records found and posted by Marler.

Known as the “Australian meat incident,” the beef substitution scandal prompted swift action and increased scrutiny by agency officials.

USDA officials couldn’t quickly produce records of species testing results in the past 30 years -- or even the past year -- but they say the possibility of that happening again is remote. The U.S. neither slaughters horses nor imports horse meat from other countries, and it doesn’t allow import of beef from the countries and companies involved in the European scandal, an official told NBC News. (He was speaking on background because he said he wasn’t authorized to discuss the issue.)

In addition, USDA inspectors look at every shipment of meat sent through U.S. ports and can demand species testing if anything is amiss, documents show.
Officials with the Food and Drug Administration, which oversees processed foods, said that they had detected no horse meat in imported or U.S.-made food. 

“We have no past record or current indication that horse meat is an ingredient in any FDA-regulated processed foods in the U.S.,” Jalil Isa, an FDA spokesman, said in an email. He added that FDA officials are reaching out to Nestle and Birds Eye to ensure that no adulterated food was sent to the U.S. Nestle has said no U.S. products use meat from European sources.

Birds Eye Iglo U.K. products have no connection to the Birds Eye brand in the U.S., which is owned by Pinnacle Foods, and isn’t affiliated with the U.K. supplier.

Producers such as the meat giant Cargill say they don’t import beef from plants that also slaughter horses, or from the companies and suppliers implicated in the European scandal, and they remain confident that their meat is free of adulteration.

“Cargill’s beef supply chain is shorter than those involved in the horse meat issue in Europe and we know, and work directly with, our suppliers, which minimizes the potential for fraudulent substitution of products,” Cargill spokesman Mike Martin told NBC News in an email.

Still, the problems in Europe could prompt renewed scrutiny, he added.

“We do not analyze for other species and are assessing the current situation to determine if this is something we might do in the future,” Martin said.

If they do, they’ll have to turn to Elisa Technologies for the horse species test, said Rosskopf. The company’s meat species kits, which verify animal proteins in raw and cooked meat samples, have been used for years by the USDA and by private firms, she said.

Before the discovery in Europe of horse meat in beef, the firm’s typical demand was for tests for more common species, for instance, to confirm that no pork was present in kosher meat, Rosskopf said. Now, meat suppliers mostly in Europe, but also in the U.S., have been clamoring for the equine test.

Have there been any positive tests so far?

“I can’t say,” said Rosskopf, noting that the company is known for its adherence to confidentiality agreements.

Of course, putting horse meat on the dinner table is common in many countries, including France, Canada, Mexico and Japan, to name a few. And it’s not unheard of on American menus, either. Slaughterhouses that produced horse meat for human consumption were in operation in the U.S. until 2007, when the last three of a one-time high of 16 or 17 plants closed under state and federal pressure.

Congress effectively banned the practice then by refusing to fund USDA inspections of the slaughterhouses. Those efforts were fueled by vocal anti-slaughter activists who regarded the practice as inhumane.
The arrangement stayed in place until 2011, when the Obama administration quietly lifted the restriction, partly out of concern for the neglect of horses in the U.S. and the treatment of horses that were shipped to Canada and Mexico to be killed.

The U.S. exported more than 46,000 metric tons of horse meat in 1990, a figure that fell to about 5,600 metric tons in 2007, when the ban was enacted, industry figures show.

Wyoming state Rep. Sue Wallis is trying to reinstate horse slaughter in the U.S. and to build a new source for the meat in America and abroad.

Her application is among those pending with the USDA to open horse slaughterhouses in Missouri, Iowa and New Mexico. The firms would produce what she and other advocates call “cheval,” horse meat that she said is prized by gourmet cooks and health enthusiasts for its taste and lean profile. Plus, Wallis said, horse meat is generally about 40 percent cheaper than beef.

“There are plenty of people in America who have no problem with cheval and are anxiously awaiting our product,” she said.

Related stories:
'Fraud on a massive scale:' Europe's horse meat scandal keeps growing
British shoppers saying nay to meat after horse scandal
Horse slaughtering legal in US, but public won't bite
A well-kept fiscal secret
By Steve Benen
-
Fri Feb 22, 2013 10:09 AM EST
Bloomberg News published a new round of polling data last night, most of it relating to the economy and the larger fiscal debate. The results are largely in line with expectations -- most Americans prefer President Obama's debt-reduction plans over Republicans', and would like Congress to delay the sequester to avoid hurting the economy.

But there was one question in the poll that struck me as especially important: "Let's turn to the federal budget deficit. This is the amount the government spends that is more than the amount it takes in from taxes and other revenue. Is it your sense that this year the deficit is getting bigger or getting smaller, or is it staying about the same as last year?"



I put together this chart to help highlight the Bloomberg results. A 62% majority believe the deficit is getting bigger, 28% believe the deficit is staying roughly the same, and only 6% believe the deficit is shrinking.

In other words, in the midst of a major national debate over America's finances, 90% of Americans are wrong about the one basic detail that probably matters most in the conversation, while only 6% -- 6%! -- are correct.
For the record, last year, over President Obama's first four years, the deficit shrunk by about $300 billion. This year, the deficit is projected to be about $600 billion smaller than when the president took office. We are, in reality, currently seeing the fastest deficit reduction in several generations.
And yet, 90% of Americans don't believe the demonstrable, incontrovertible, entirely objective truth. It's worth pondering why.

Public ignorance on this scale is, to my mind, understandable given the political conversation. Literally every day, Republican officials proclaim that the deficit is spiraling out of control, threatening the fate of Western Civilization As We Know It. The media often fails to play a constructive role, with news organizations playing along, telling the public that the deficit is necessarily a bad thing, and that policymakers have a responsibility to address it immediately.

Indeed, for the typical American news consumer, I imagine there's an assumption that comes alongside the fiscal debate: "The deficit must be getting bigger in a hurry, otherwise it'd be stupid for Washington to invest so much time and energy on this issue, instead of other pressing matters."

But the facts are the facts, even if only 6% of the country is aware of them.

Data Retrieval: Employment, Hours, and Earnings (CES)





To see the last 10 years of data, select one or more series from the table below, then scroll down to click the "Retrieve data" button.


ACCESS TO HISTORICAL DATA FOR THE 'B' TABLES OF THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION RELEASE
B-1 EMPLOYEES ON NONFARM PAYROLLS BY INDUSTRY SECTOR AND SELECTED INDUSTRY DETAIL ...
B-2 AVERAGE WEEKLY HOURS AND OVERTIME OF ALL EMPLOYEES ...
B-3 AVERAGE HOURLY AND WEEKLY EARNINGS OF ALL EMPLOYEES ...
B-4 INDEXES OF AGGREGATE WEEKLY HOURS AND PAYROLLS FOR ALL EMPLOYEES ...
B-5 EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN ON NONFARM PAYROLLS BY INDUSTRY SECTOR, SEASONALLY ADJUSTED
B-6 EMPLOYMENT OF PRODUCTION AND NONSUPERVISORY EMPLOYEES .
B-7 AVERAGE WEEKLY HOURS AND OVERTIME OF PRODUCTION AND NONSUPERVISORY EMPLOYEES ...
B-8 AVERAGE HOURLY AND WEEKLY EARNINGS OF PRODUCTION AND NONSUPERVISORY EMPLOYEES ...
B-9 INDEXES OF AGGREGATE WEEKLY HOURS AND PAYROLLS FOR PRODUCTION AND NONSUPERVISORY EMPLOYEES ...

You can choose other years, reformat your returned information, or create differences using the "Reformat" button that will be shown with the retrieved information.

(Note: Annual average information is stored only with the "Not seasonally adjusted" series.)


ESTABLISHMENT DATA
Table B-1. Employees on nonfarm payrolls by industry sector and selected industry detail
[In thousands]


IndustryNot seasonally
adjusted
Seasonally
adjusted
Select All
Total nonfarm
Total private
Goods-producing
Mining and logging
Logging
Mining
Oil and gas extraction
Mining, except oil and gas(1)
Coal mining
Support activities for mining
Construction
Construction of buildings
Residential building
Nonresidential building
Heavy and civil engineering construction
Specialty trade contractors
Residential specialty trade contractors
Nonresidential specialty trade contractors
Manufacturing
Durable goods
Wood products
Nonmetallic mineral products
Primary metals
Fabricated metal products
Machinery
Computer and electronic products(1)
Computer and peripheral equipment
Communication equipment
Semiconductors and electronic components
Electronic instruments
Electrical equipment and appliances
Transportation equipment(1)
Motor vehicles and parts(2)
Furniture and related products
Miscellaneous durable goods manufacturing
Nondurable goods
Food manufacturing
Textile mills
Textile product mills
Apparel
Paper and paper products
Printing and related support activities
Petroleum and coal products
Chemicals
Plastics and rubber products
Miscellaneous nondurable goods manufacturing
Private service-providing
Trade, transportation, and utilities
Wholesale trade
Durable goods
Nondurable goods
Electronic markets and agents and brokers
Retail trade
Motor vehicle and parts dealers(1)
Automobile dealers
Furniture and home furnishings stores
Electronics and appliance stores
Building material and garden supply stores
Food and beverage stores
Health and personal care stores
Gasoline stations
Clothing and clothing accessories stores
Sporting goods, hobby, book, and music stores
General merchandise stores(1)
Department stores
Miscellaneous store retailers
Nonstore retailers
Transportation and warehousing
Air transportation
Rail transportation
Water transportation
Truck transportation
Transit and ground passenger transportation
Pipeline transportation
Scenic and sightseeing transportation
Support activities for transportation
Couriers and messengers
Warehousing and storage
Utilities
Information
Publishing industries, except Internet
Motion picture and sound recording industries
Broadcasting, except Internet
Telecommunications
Data processing, hosting and related services
Other information services
Financial activities
Finance and insurance
Monetary authorities - central bank
Credit intermediation and related activities(1)
Depository credit intermediation(1)
Commercial banking
Securities, commodity contracts, investments
Insurance carriers and related activities
Funds, trusts, and other financial vehicles
Real estate and rental and leasing
Real estate
Rental and leasing services
Lessors of nonfinancial intangible assets
Professional and business services
Professional and technical services(1)
Legal services
Accounting and bookkeeping services
Architectural and engineering services
Computer systems design and related services
Management and technical consulting services
Management of companies and enterprises
Administrative and waste services
Administrative and support services(1)
Employment services(1)
Temporary help services
Business support services
Services to buildings and dwellings
Waste management and remediation services
Education and health services
Educational services
Health care and social assistance
Health care(3)
Ambulatory health care services(1)
Offices of physicians
Outpatient care centers
Home health care services
Hospitals
Nursing and residential care facilities(1)
Nursing care facilities
Social assistance(1)
Child day care services
Leisure and hospitality
Arts, entertainment, and recreation
Performing arts and spectator sports
Museums, historical sites, zoos, and parks
Amusements, gambling, and recreation
Accommodation and food services
Accommodation
Food services and drinking places
Other services
Repair and maintenance
Personal and laundry services
Membership associations and organizations
Government
Federal
Federal, except U.S. Postal Service
U.S. Postal Service
State government
State government education
State government, excluding education
Local government
Local government education
Local government, excluding education
Footnotes:
(1) Includes other industries, not shown separately.
(2) Includes motor vehicles, motor vehicle bodies and trailers, and motor vehicle parts.
(3) Includes ambulatory health care services, hospitals, and nursing and residential care facilities.
p = preliminary.

Last Modified Date: February 1, 2013