Revisiting the Jungle

A new streamlined beef-inpection system at slaughterhouses is allowing diseased meat onto the market at an alarming pace, according to whistleblowing meat inspectors. They condemn a United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) plan to rely on beef company employees to perform the majority of inspections and restrict government inspectors to spot checks at pre-determined points on the processing line. A group of 21 federal meat inspectors who oversee plants using the system state, "in good conscience we no longer can say that we know USDA-approved beef is wholesome." In an open letter sent to Congress in March, the inspectors write, "based on the filth and disease we see getting through every day ... the program isn't working."

A similar streamlined process was introduced in 1984 for chicken, leading to greatly increased rates of salmonella contamination, reports Tom Devine of the Government Accountability Project, a watchdog group working with the inspectors.

The inspectors believe that USDA management advocates both the chicken and beef streamlined systems so that slaughterhouses may increase line speeds. A 1988 USDA news release that the new system would increase slaughterhouse productivity by 40 percent.

In their letter to Congress, the federal inspectors cite examples of meat contamination which they previously would have stopped but now must let pass, including "an eight fold increase in head contamination, whose meat goes into products like ground beef ...; diseases like measles [and] tapeworms; [and] carcasses which fall on the floors ... which have blood, cattle feces, urine, ingesta, hair, pus from abscesses, grease, dirt, spit and tobacco [on them]."

Deadly Anxiety

More than 10,000 Japanese workers die each year from diseases caused by overwork, according to the Japan

Council for Victims of Karoshi. Karoshi, which means death from overwork, is caused by high blood pressure, arteriosclerosis, strokes and other heart and brain diseases. The Council and many doctors in Japan believe that the long hours and hard work for which Japanese white-collar employees have become famous is killing thousands and placing many more at risk of death. Dr. Kiyoyasu Arikawa, an authority on the Karoshi phenomenon, says the number of deaths has risen steeply from only 10 reported cases in 1969.

Despite plaudits from U.S. commentators, Japanese workers are generally unhappy with the amount of time and effort demanded by their employers. Eighty percent of the salaried workers polled by the Fukoku Life Insurance Co. said they were overworked and more than forty percent thought they might die as a result. Asked what could be done to ease their anxiety, 85 percent of the workers chose the answer indicating they "just want to sleep more." Employees work an average of 2,189 hours per year in Japan, between 230 and 550 hours longer than their counterparts in Europe and the United States. In addition, many Japanese white-collar workers have a 2-3 hour commute to and from the office. Pressure from upper management commonly causes office workers to skip vacations and donate work by not listing overtime hours.

Killing Fields

A top official of the Environmental Protection Agency dramatically weakened a recently released EPA report on the cancer risks of electromagnetic fields (EMFs). Drafts of the report, which were leaked to the media in 1988, identified exposure to electromagnetic fields as a "probable" human carcinogen. By order of Dr. William Farland, director of the Office of Health and Environmental Assessment, the final report was changed so that it concluded that people exposed to EMFs at work showed "a consistent pattern of response that suggests, but [does] not prove, a causal link." Farland claims he made the changes on purely scientific grounds and that current evidence is far too inconclusive to support the report in its original form.

Electromagnetic fields are created by everyday electrical objects, including toasters, computers, microwave ovens, televisions, high-tension wires and electric blankets. Several studies have implicated EMFs as increasing the risk of childhood leukemia, central nervous system cancer and lymphoma. Adults who are continuously exposed to EMFs through computer screens and other sources may risk developing brain cancer, central nervous system cancer and leukemia.

Despite Farland's changes, the EPA report, titled "An Evaluation of the Potential Carcinogenicity of Electromagnetic Fields," still clearly states in several passages that EMFs promote the growth of tumors and that there is an association between exposure to the fields and cancer. Most competing studies on the dangers of EMFs are funded and/or conducted by power utilities and government agencies with possible conflicts of interest on the subject. The Electric Power Research Institute (which is a research arm of utilities), Southern California Edison, the U.S. Navy and the Department of Energy have been major supporters of EMF research. While these studies often conclude that EMFs pose substantial health risks, they commonly emphasize the inconclusiveness of the evidence and the need for further study.

� Jim Sugarman