The United Corporation of America
“We found significant influence from the [meat and dairy] industry at every turn: in academic research, agriculture policy development, government regulation, and enforcement.”
~Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production, Johns Hopkins University
Our government and its subsidiary organizations—the USDA, FDA, and EPA—are not always working in the public’s favor to protect our food, but rather for the benefit of corporate interests. Agribusiness is one of the most powerful lobbies in Congress and continues to effectively “buy” favorable legislation. This is why the FDA and USDA knowingly allow feces to remain in your meat, the animals you eat to be injected with growth hormones and antibiotics, rendered animals to be put into animal feed, and rocket fuel and pus to stay in your milk—all practices that other industrialized countries such as Japan, Canada, and the United Kingdom have banned.
Although the general conception of the American public is that the FDA and USDA were created to ensure food quality for the public benefit and Congress was created to protect the public’s interests, the reality is that, based on government organizations’ actions, current policies work to protect the interests of the corporations in the food industry. While America was founded on the principle of freedom of speech, factory farming and agribusiness are rapidly taking away the American people’s rights to free speech and safe food. Agribusiness-corporate interests are controlling America by spending corporate dollars, lobbying Congress about legislation, and silencing community voices. To restore order, it’s time to stand up to USDA, Inc., FDA, Inc., and Congress, Inc. and take the money out of politics.
The USDA: Not Working for the People
President Abraham Lincoln established the USDA—the United States Department of Agriculture—in 1862. The USDA was first formed to help American farmers. While it claims it still fulfills Lincoln’s vision as a “People’s Department,” the reality is very different, as the people’s health and best interests come behind corporate interests. The USDA might touch “the lives of every American, every day,” but today it does not have the positive impact that Lincoln obviously intended.1
On its website, the USDA claims two missions: one is “expanding markets for agricultural products” and “further developing alternative markets for agricultural products and activities” and the other mission is “enhancing food safety by taking steps to reduce the prevalence of foodborne hazards from farm to table.”2 Although on the surface these two goals aren’t mutually exclusive, the USDA’s activities clearly favor one over the other. Protecting our food safety has taken a backseat.
For example, let’s look at the USDA’s messages on cheese. On the one hand, the USDA has the consumers’ best interests at heart by urging us to eat less cheese and saturated fat. It even asks consumers to consider holding the cheese on their pizza. At the same time, the USDA provides funding to the marketing group it created called Dairy Management that seeks to promote the consumption of cheese. While the USDA is asking the public to limit cheese, in 2010 the Dairy Management group partnered with Domino’s to provide 40 percent more cheese on pizzas.3 The USDA provided $5 million in funds to the Dairy Management group a year earlier. It seems the USDA is speaking out of both sides of its mouth. So which mission does it believe in, health or industry interests? Clearly, the two are not compatible. It’s time the USDA picked a team.
The problems with the USDA do not stop at its mixed messaging. It has gone through massive deregulation without the public’s knowledge. The Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point Program, instituted under the Clinton Administration in 1998, is one clear example. Under HACCP, the USDA leaves regulation and inspection plans up to the food-processing plants. The USDA only checks the paper versions of the plans to ensure that the processing plant doesn’t openly have any problems. After companies adopt the plans, they are presumed to be making safe food products.4 We all know that from plan to implementation, there can be numerous problems.
This means even though the USDA never inspects the actual food products, they still receive the USDA stamp of approval. The public was never notified of this change. Like many of you, we were shocked to learn that the USDA stamp of approval doesn’t actually correlate with real inspection. This means we are tricked in to believing that our food products are inspected, regulated, and safe when in fact the opposite is true.
In fact, the USDA only minimally tests food products on its own. Ann Veneman, the Agriculture Secretary appointed by President George W. Bush from January 2000 until January 2005, vetoed a program that would test all cows for mad cow disease.5 It is important to note that Ann Veneman was linked to a company that produces the bovine-growth hormones for cows and to a major meatpacking corporation at the time she made this decision. Only twenty thousand cattle were tested in 2003 out of the thirty-five million slaughtered that year. Testing all of the animals is not impossible. Japan tests each and every one of its cows killed for human consumption to ensure a safe food supply.6
Aside from lax testing, the USDA has even falsified records to sell contaminated meat. Lester Friedlander, a former USDA veterinarian, spoke out and stated that he was told that if he found evidence of mad cow disease, he needed to keep that information a secret. He confirmed that the USDA has overturned laboratory tests of cows that had tested positive for mad cow disease.7 The USDA has been known for adulterating reports and telling their employees to lie about test results to cover up mad cow disease. Secrets and lies. This is the USDA’s approach to food safety.
In all fairness, conflicting corporate interests have made the USDA less powerful than we think in regulating and enforcing food recalls. During the peak of food recalls and foodborne illness sweeping the nation between 2000 and 2004, the USDA Inspector General openly admitted that the meat eaten in the United States is contaminated with sh!t and that this contamination is “continuous.”8 Where was that statement publicized? Anyone?
Despite this knowledge, zero enforcement action was taken to remedy the situation. When there were nineteen beef recalls in 2007, the USDA failed to trace the beef products back to the slaughterhouse and meat-packing processors. The USDA actually can’t disclose where contaminated meat comes from, as this is considered “proprietary” information.9 10 In fact, if a company decides to voluntarily recall a contaminated product, they are under no obligation to notify the public. The state of Minnesota managed to trace one outbreak to Cargill. The lawsuit was settled out of court for an unknown sum, in order to prevent the public from knowing the extent of the outbreak. The twenty-five million pounds of E. coli-contaminated beef products recalled had the USDA stamp of approval.11
What is depressing is, year in and year out, food recalls and safety aren’t improving. Most recently, in January of 2014, nine million pounds of beef, the equivalent of an entire year’s worth of beef production, was recalled by the California company, Rancho Feeding Corp, due to lack of federal inspection that resulted in it using unhealthy animals to process meat.12 The level of deception and adulteration, such as trimming off cancerous tumors on the animals and using fake stamps of approval, emphasizes the glaring oversight in our food-safety policies.13
One major problem with the ability of our governmental organizations to do their jobs is the division of labor between the FDA and the USDA that is complex and even nonsensical, which allows gaping holes for oversights. The FDA and the USDA are both tasked with the job of regulating our food system. In simple terms, the USDA is in charge of overseeing meat and poultry, and the FDA is in charge of overseeing seafood. Yet it gets quite complicated.
For instance, let’s take eggs. The FDA oversees the safety of whole, shelled eggs, whereas the USDA oversees the processing of eggs and the packaging and labeling of whole eggs. The question is who is in charge when there is a safety hazard such as salmonella poisoning of whole eggs? It seems the USDA is in charge of regulating the facility where the eggs are produced, but the FDA is accountable for the safety hazard of the eggs themselves. Even more interesting, open-faced sandwiches are inspected by the USDA and close-faced sandwiches by the FDA.14 Sausage is regulated by the USDA, but pepperoni is regulated by the FDA. Confused? Don’t worry, we are probably just as confused as the USDA and FDA.
Although the FDA does not “regulate” food like the USDA does, the organization that is supposed to regulate harmful chemicals and substances being put into our food supply has outrageously failed. Rather than not allowing chemical substances into our food like the rest of the developed and industrialized countries’ organizations, the FDA has instead decided to “regulate” the amount of chemicals allowed in our food, such as arsenic and cancer-promoting growth hormones, that have clearly been proven harmful through numerous studies.
The approach that the FDA (and USDA) chooses to take is to allow your food to be contaminated up to a determined maximum-exposure level. This does not mean that there is no hazard from ingesting these toxic chemicals or that the food you eat is free of contaminants.15 Rather, your food is deemed “safe” by the industry’s own definitions. “Safe food” is then a very relative term.
In comparison, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) that oversees food safety has a very different approach. While the USDA allows health hazards up to a level it somehow deems appropriate, the EMA only certifies use of chemicals if it is backed up by studies that prove there are zero health hazards. This is why the European countries have banned arsenic use in chicken feed. Since there is not a safe limit, the European government will not allow it to be used. In comparison, the FDA allows arsenic—a known toxin and cancer-promoting agent—in chicken feed. The tolerance level for chicken livers is up to four times as much as that for chicken breasts, thighs, and muscle tissue—the areas where arsenic is stored.16
The USDA and FDA are not representing the concerns of Americans. In a recent poll, two-thirds of Americans stated that they wanted more oversight of their food safety.17 This attitude has not changed since 2007, when the same poll was issued. As recalls increasingly hit the news, more and more people realize that there is a clear problem with our current system. Despite this desire, government organizations are increasingly not complying with American interests even after the passage of the 2010 FDA Food Safety Modernization Act. Michael Taylor, the FDA Deputy Commissioner for Food and Veterinary Medicine, stated that the public’s desire for better oversight will probably not become a reality any time soon. Shockingly, the issue comes down to funds and lack of resources. Mr. Taylor stated, “We will continue efforts to make the best use of the resources we have, but simply put, we cannot achieve FDA’s vision of a modern food safety system and a safer food supply without a significant increase in resources.”18 We have an idea to fix the lack of resources. Let’s take the billions of dollars in federal subsidies propping up the agribusiness industry and reallocate those resources to food safety. In order to achieve this solution, though, we have to get the USDA, FDA, and Congress out of the industry’s back pocket.
Shocking but true: our government and legislation is heavily “bought off” by corporations. From 2005 to 2010, the ten leading agribusiness interests spent $127 million lobbying Congress and federal agencies.19 The base of lobbyists increased to an impressive 159 people. This means there was about one lobbyist for every four members of the House and Senate. For those of us who believe in fair play and legislation that is hopefully in the best interests of consumers, we hate to disappoint you. This isn’t how bills are made and passed. Although it is illegal to sell a vote, it is perfectly acceptable and legal to vote for or against a bill based on a donor’s preferences. Time and again, the industry has proven that “changes in contribution determine changes in voting behavior.”20
Let’s take the Farm Bill, Federal Agriculture Reform and Risk Management (FARRM) Act of 2013, as an example to understand why our government is currently of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations. The Farm Bill is the premier legislation that regulates farm policies and subsidies. This is the bread and butter of factory farming. If subsidies got cut, factory farming would fall like a house of cards.
Over the past three years, the Farm Bill has been one of the most lobbied pieces of legislation. Although 350 organizations lobbied the bill, the American Farm Bureau and Monsanto led the charge. Over the past five years, the American Farm Bureau spent $27.9 million lobbying Congress, and Monsanto spent $36 million. In total, the industries spent $57.5 million on lobbying for the 2013 Farm Bill.21
The American Farm Bureau Federation is the organization that claims to be the “voice of agriculture,” representing the corporate interests of meat, dairy, pigs, eggs, and chickens. Yet not only does it not support family farmers, it is out of touch with much of mainstream America’s interests. The Farm Bureau is notorious for blocking and opposing environmental legislation, such as the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, wetlands laws, pesticide regulations, and any efforts to curb global-warming emissions.22
Think the Farm Bureau is concerned about ensuring we have a clean and safe Earth to live on? Far from it. Rather, they are focusing solely on its corporate interests. Worryingly, the Farm Bureau has positioned itself as one of the most powerful lobbying groups in America.
Although corporations spend billions of dollars lobbying Congress, it pays off handsomely in legislation. While the FARRM Act slashed $23 billion in costs, $8 billion from food stamps, and $4 billion in cuts to conservation over the next ten years, the bill will give $7 billion in crop subsidies.23 Crops are the main components of animal feed, which is 60 percent of the cost of factory farming. It seems the food-stamp lobby and conservation efforts didn’t write big enough checks.
In politics, money obviously talks. Over the past thirty years, the number of lobbyists as well as annual spending to Congress increased from $100 million to more than $3.5 billion. In fact, each industry spends as much as $157 million lobbying Congress to support industry practices. Breaking down the numbers, for every one dollar the industry “donates” to a Congressman, the industry receives about two thousand dollars returned in subsidy payments.24
This could be because along with the American Farm Bureau, industry groups like the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, National Pork Producers Council, and the National Milk Producers Federation give substantial campaign donations. It is expensive to run for office, and it is well known that fundraising efforts provide ample opportunity for industry to “buy” votes. Let’s take House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas (R-Oklahoma) as an example. Among agribusiness, he is a key target and favorite. In his 2012 election-campaign cycle, he received $744,000 from agribusiness. This was almost half of his total campaign budget. Similarly, agribusiness lobbyists contributed $453,000 to prominent House Agriculture Committee member Collin Peterson (D-Minnesota) and $346,000 to Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow (D-Michigan).25 The agribusiness lobby is extremely strategic in its approach. But it’s very easy to see how this campaign money can represent a substantial conflict of interest.
All of this spending means that agribusiness holds legislative power when it comes to passing or opposing legislation in its interests. This is crystal clear when we look at the proposed bills that agribusiness lobbying has had a substantial hand in defeating. For example, 2010 was a good year for agribusiness in terms of defeating environmental legislation to restore our waterways. Agribusiness—including lobbyists from Monsanto, Cargill, Land O’Lakes, and the National Turkey Federation—successfully blocked a 2010 bill that would restore the Clean Water Act’s protections to all American waterways.26 That same year, they also defeated a Chesapeake Bay restoration bill, which would have “required all polluters to contribute to restoring the ecologically imperiled health of the Chesapeake Bay, and provide billions of dollars for clean up.” Naturally, agribusiness has little interest in cleaning up its messes.27 Unfortunately, Congress also had a difficult time enacting the polluter-pay principle with corporate money in its pockets.28 While Congress and agribusiness continue to massage each other’s backs, the problem is that when it comes to the environment, we are all going to suffer the consequences. Money might fix legislation in favor of corporate interests, but we simply can’t buy more clean oceans and waterways. Once they are gone, the damage is near irreversible.
In Corporations We Don’t Trust: The Revolving Door
Not only does agribusiness put money into Congress members’ pockets to “buy” legislation, it also infiltrates the very organizations that seek to regulate it. This notion, called the “revolving door,” is where industry employees gain employment in government agencies for a short time and then often return to the industry groups. This is particularly true of the USDA. As Eric Schlosser, the author of Fast Food Nation, profoundly states, “You’d have a hard time finding a federal agency more completely dominated by the industry it was created to regulate.”29 It goes without saying that this creates direct conflicts of interest within the department, as the agency is notorious for employing individuals who have previously worked at the meat and dairy corporations the USDA is supposed to regulate. This revolving door has allowed the USDA and FDA to institute lax practices that result in sh!t in your meat and growth hormones and rocket fuel in your milk.
Under the most recent Bush administration, the USDA boasted a prominent staff from former meat and dairy interest groups as well as Monsanto. In fact, about a dozen of the USDA’s top, high-profile officials had intimate ties to the agribusiness industry, covering the entire spectrum of interests from meat and dairy to Monsanto and large food-processing companies such as ConAgra.
Looking at the staff list, one would be hard-pressed to know it was in fact the USDA and not an agribusiness-lobbying group. For example, the highly acclaimed position of USDA Secretary was staffed by Ann Veneman, who served on the board of biotech company Calgene that was acquired by Monsanto. Ms. Veneman’s Chief of Staff, Dale Moore, was the Executive Director for Legislative Affairs for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. The NCBA is directly tied to some of the largest factory farm corporations in America, such as Tyson. The Under Secretary of the USDA, Floyd Gaibler, used to be the Executive Director of the dairy industry’s National Cheese Institute. The former Senior Director and Legislative Counsel for ConAgra Foods (one of the largest food processors) was the Assistant Secretary for Congressional Relations.30
Monsanto, in particular, has cleverly placed quite a few of its thirty thousand employees into influential posts at government agencies.31 If anything, Monsanto serves as a blueprint for how to infiltrate almost every high-profile position in government to serve its own interests. Consider the following:
Just to refresh your memory, the FDA approved the use of Monsanto’s rBGH growth hormone in cows during the 1990s, despite reports of rBGH’s dangerous side effects in cows and potential human-health hazards. Ms. Miller and Mr. Taylor might just have had something to do with getting that FDA approval. They also might have been influential in staving off efforts to repeal rBGH even as mounting scientific evidence from a variety of sources urged the FDA to act.
We can’t judge people by their past employment necessarily, but the implemented policies that undermine the regulatory mission of the USDA and FDA in favor of maintaining high profits for corporations says otherwise. For example, the USDA continued to support the misguided EQIP programs that give conservation money to factory farms to aid in waste management. The USDA also denied and avoided testing of mad cow disease in 2003 instead of taking measures to assure the safety of America’s food supply to consumers. The USDA and FDA have also continuously turned a blind eye to scientific research that has recorded the harm of genetically engineered foods and continued to support and push them onto unknowing consumers without labels.
Although the Obama administration pledged to help end the revolving door, it continues to staff former industry employees in extremely prominent positions. For starters, the USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack has ties to Monsanto and openly promotes genetically engineered crops. This could be one reason why, despite public support for labeling of genetically modified foods, the USDA has continuously failed to implement the provision. Staffing Michael Taylor, Monsanto’s former vice president for Public Policy as the Deputy Commissioner for Foods, most likely does not bode well for the American public. Unfortunately, this administration has failed to “close the revolving door that lets lobbyists come into government freely and lets them use their time in public service as a way to promote their own interests over the interests of the American people when they leave.”32
Silencing American Voices
America prides itself on being a country built on freedom of speech. Corporate interests are quickly and swiftly limiting that ability. Some of the most atrocious ways they are achieving this is through ag-gag laws, which make it illegal to defame or speak out against factory-farming practices. To agribusiness’s horror, undercover footage of atrocious practices in its “farms” that reveals the truth behind the factory doors made it to mainstream media.
The industry is worried about videos and photographs surfacing that show animal cruelty and filthy and barbaric conditions fit for the spread of pandemics, which could undercut its profits. Nor is it pleased that America is finding out just how disgustingly and inhumanely the animals that wind up on our plates are treated. The reason factory farms survive is because most Americans have no idea how they operate.
The agribusiness industry has responded to these revelations not by changing its practices, but by pushing for legislation that makes it illegal to showcase pictures or videos of factory farms. It has made very clear that the goal of these laws that result in jail time for offenders is to protect the industry. Now, friends, this should be a major clue that the industry is not engaging in wholesome activities. Why would it evade transparency if it has nothing to hide?
Most of us would think that these bills would never pass through and become law. How could states pass such egregious freedom-of-speech violations that work to make sure industry practices are secretive? And yet ag-gag laws passed in Iowa, Missouri, and Utah in 2011 and 2012. Ten other legislatures, including those in Arkansas, California, Indiana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Wyoming, and Vermont all proposed bills for consideration in 2013. Pennsylvania’s proposed law even criminalizes downloading photographs or videos of factory farms over the Internet.
The corporations’ supposed-legal basis for these claims is the violation of their private property rights. They liken it to someone going into a person’s private home with a hidden camera. That is quite a logical stretch. What agribusiness seems to be missing is that our food production is not made in private homes but in corporate practices. America, let’s be honest. This has nothing to do with trespassing and everything to do with keeping the public in the dark so we know as little as possible about how food is produced. To propose this legislation in the first place is ridiculous, but to actually have it pass in certain states is preposterous. If anything, these ag-gag laws are encroaching on our civil liberties and those, rather than corporate interests, should be protected.
Silencing America’s voices just begins with ag-gag laws. Agribusiness has also sought to enact cheeseburger laws, right-to-farm laws, and veggie-libel laws. Cheeseburger laws make it illegal for plaintiffs to sue corporations for obesity claims. Surprisingly, cheeseburger laws have passed in twenty-four states. The most infamous laws supporting agribusiness are probably food-defamation laws, or veggie-libel laws. Oprah Winfrey brought these laws to light in 1996, when she claimed that she would never eat a hamburger again after learning how it was produced. Subsequently, sales of beef went down, and Texas cattlemen, led by Cactus Feeders, Inc. owner Paul Engler, sued her for defamation and lost profits.33 Apparently, the Texas cattlemen don’t believe in freedom of speech. Even though Oprah won, after a very expensive and drawn-out case, the fact that a person can get sued for expressing a personal opinion based on fact goes against the very principles of America as the “land of the free, home of the brave.”
And yet, veggie-libel laws have passed in thirteen states to date. If people voice that they hate Brussels sprouts or broccoli, should they be sued? Ag-gag laws seek to protect economic interests, but they are coming at an expense to American civil liberties. If we don’t like the way corporations are destroying our health and our environment, and if we never want to eat chicken again, we damn well should be able to express that opinion without retribution. In case agribusiness forgot: freedom of speech is not a privilege, it’s an American right.
Shockingly, the agribusiness industry has gone so far as to label those who speak out against their practices as terrorists. Dubbed the Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act, these laws provide stiff penalties for criminal conduct such as vandalism or theft when a farm is involved. While we wholeheartedly do not endorse violence or destruction of property, branding Americans as terrorists is beyond extreme. The fact that thirty-nine states have enacted eco-terrorism laws is not only mind-blowing, but also speaks to the clout of agribusiness in politics. The point of these laws is to establish a level of fear for attempting to go against these corporations that are “innocently trying to protect America’s food supply.” They aren’t fooling anyone. Ask yourself: do these food corporations care more about their bottom lines or our health?
We can’t trust an industry to protect American interests when its wallet is at stake. The industry has proven this to us time and again through pushing chemically laced and genetically engineered additives in our food onto unassuming and trusting consumers. As former US Secretary of Labor Robert Reich proclaims, “Companies are not interested in the public good. It is not their responsibility to be good.”34
Let’s be frank; the only way the food supply gets safer is when the public steps up to require corporations to disclose what is happening behind closed doors. For example, in 2009, undercover footage of downed cows, too sick to walk or stand, being forklifted to slaughter at the Westland/Hallmark Meat Company plant in Southern California led to one of the largest meat recalls in US history to date. Since downed cows can pose a substantial human-health risk, more than 143 million pounds of beef were recalled.35 Without this footage, the industry would have continued these practices that work to endanger, not make safer or protect, our food supply.
The danger of these ag-libel laws is they undercut necessary and healthy inquiry that actually benefits consumers. All of these laws that stifle investigation and the flow of information go directly against consumer interests. America, we were born out of the fight for freedom to express our beliefs, and these very values are being corrupted by shortsighted corporate greed.
Government is supposed to protect its citizens, and yet our government has made it clear that it doesn’t give a damn about our interests. The National Meat, Dairy, Pork, and Chicken Councils are taking legislative action to avoid regulation, as well as keep the public in the dark about what is in our food. Slack regulation hurts our loved ones and our planet. Don’t be fooled. Do you really think our food is being inspected? It is time to enforce corporate accountability for making us and our planet sick. We are done standing by the sidelines. Let’s reestablish a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
1) The chance of your meat and dairy being inspected is slim to none. Don’t be fooled by labels claiming it is USDA approved. The USDA inspects plans on paper. Safeguard your family by buying organic, plant-based foods.
2) Don’t blindly follow USDA guidelines. They are paid for by the meat, dairy, egg, and chicken councils, as well as influenced by Coca-Cola. If you trust them to give you unbiased information on what is healthy, think again. Better yet, get informed!
3) Do it yourself and grow your own garden. There is nothing better than homegrown veggies.
4) See a law you don’t like? Want to protect your freedom of speech? Say something!