This shows the need to eat range fed/organic/wild game meat.  Another lesser
solution is to buy kosher meat.  If the animal has any cancers, tumors,
lesions, etc., the meat is not certified kosher.  The diseased meat than goes
to the regular butcher shops


<< Article in today's Chicago Suntimes:

 Meat policy causing a beef
 July 15, 2000
 BY LANCE GAY SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE
 WASHINGTON--The federal agency overseeing food inspection is imposing
 new rules reclassifying as safe for human consumption animal
 carcasses with cancers, tumors and open sores.

 Federal meat inspectors and consumer groups are protesting the
 decision to classify tumors and open sores as aesthetic problems,
 which permits the meat to get the government's purple seal of
 approval as a wholesome food product.

 The Agriculture Department began implementing the new policy as part
 of a pilot project in 24 slaughterhouses last October and plans to
 expand the system nationwide covering poultry, beef and pork. The
 agency this month extended until Aug. 29 the time for the public to
 comment on the regulations and won't issue final rules until after
 the comments are received.

 In 1998, the inspections and safety system reclassified an array of
 animal diseases as being "defects that rarely or never present a
 direct public health risk" and said "unaffected carcass portions"
 could be passed on to consumers by cutting out lesions.

 Among animal diseases the agency said don't present a health danger
 are:

 * Cancer.

 * A pneumonia of poultry called airsacculitis.

 * Glandular swellings or lymphomas.

 * Sores.

 * Infectious arthritis.

 * Diseases caused by intestinal worms.

 In the case of tumors, the guidelines state: "remove localized lesion
 (s) and pass unaffected carcass portions."

 "They just cut off the areas," said Carol Blake, spokeswoman for the
 Agriculture Department's inspection and safety system.

 "Most Americans don't want to eat this sort of contamination," said
 Wenonah Hauter, director of Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy
 Project.

 Delmer Jones, a federal food inspector for 41 years who lives in
 Remlap, Ala., said he's so revolted by the lowering of food
 wholesomeness standards that he doesn't buy meat at the supermarket
 anymore because he doesn't trust that it is safe to eat.

 "I eat very little to no meat but sardines and fish," said Jones,
 president of the National Joint Council of Meat Inspection Locals, a
 union of 7,000 meat inspectors nationwide affiliated with the
 American Federation of Government Employees. He said he's trying to
 get his wife to stop eating meat. "I've told her what she's eating." >>