Protecting Food. Empowering Whistleblowers.
Protecting Food. Empowering Whistleblowers.
by Mike McGraw The meat industry has been scandalized in recent years by undercover videos showing horrific abuse of farm animals on their way to slaughter: workers kicking piglets like volleyballs, skinning veal calves alive and ramming a forklift into a sick cow. The videos prompted commitments to improve enforcement of a 55-year-old federal law […]
by Ted Genoways Shawn Lyons was dead to rights—and he knew it. More than a month had passed since People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals had released a video of savage mistreatment at the MowMar Farms hog confinement facility where he worked as an entry-level herdsman in the breeding room. The three enormous sow […]
(Washington, DC) – In a complaint filed in federal court, a former employee of Brothers International Food Corporation alleges the New York-based food and beverage company violated FDA’s Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) whistleblower provision. Colin Chase, former Director of eCommerce at Brothers’ Rochester, New York headquarters, was terminated in July 2012 after raising safety […]
Whistleblower Meat Inspector Gains Support for Online Petition (Washington, DC) – Sherry Medina, a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) poultry inspector, has collected more than 70,000 petition signatures via a Change.org petition asking Tyson Foods to stop its excessive use of hazardous chemicals in poultry processing. After 16 years of working as a federal meat […]
by Kimberly Kindy When Jose Navarro landed a job as a federal poultry inspector in 2006, he moved his wife and newborn son to a rural town in Upstate New York near the processing plant, believing it was a steppingstone to a better life. Five years later, Navarro was dead. The 37-year-old’s lungs had bled […]
Affidavits Released as Part of Ongoing Two-Year Investigation; Findings Raise Red Flags with USDA Poultry Plan (Washington, DC) – Today, the Government Accountability Project (GAP) is releasing evidence it has gathered from federal poultry inspector whistleblowers about chemical use in the industry and its health impacts. GAP is making publicly available affidavits from two […]
To the Editor: Re “Open the Slaughterhouses” (Op-Ed, April 9): Advocates for the meat industry are fundamentally incorrect in their assertion that ag-gag bills offer protection to whistle-blowers. To suggest that 48-hour grace periods for bringing video evidence of animal abuse to the authorities without threat of prosecution benefits whistle-blowers is misleading. Mandatory reporting is […]
by Alastair Bland For years, undercover videos documenting animal cruelty at farms and slaughterhouses have cast the nation’s meat and dairy farmers in a grim light. In response, the livestock industry supported legislative efforts in multiple states designed to keep cameras from recording without permission in livestock plants. The Salt reported on these efforts, which […]
by Aviva Shen A new food inspection rule proposed by the US Department of Agriculture would let poultry plants conduct their own inspections, removing federal food inspectors from the assembly line. At a House appropriations oversight hearing on Wednesday, Food Safety and Inspection Service administrators argued the move would save taxpayers money and allow the […]
by Dan Noyes The ABC7 I-Team took an inside look at a common meat industry practice that has activists and the meat industry squaring off. It’s a battle that is bringing up new questions about how much you get to know about the meat you eat. First we told you about meat glue, now, we’re […]