Mad cows, bad enforcement

Assurances that the nation's largest beef recall is merely a precaution are small comfort in Washington state.

Remember, the nation's first case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy — or mad-cow disease — was found in Yakima County in 2003. That revelation gutted U.S. beef exports, which have still not recovered world market share, and prompted major improvements in domestic beef safety programs.But, clearly, the recall of 143 million pounds of Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. beef shows that more improvements are necessary. Add in the string of disturbing recent food-safety troubles — ranging from E. coli-contaminated spinach from California to tainted peanut butter from China — and there's a strong case federal food-safety monitoring has failed to keep up with the growing sophistication of worldwide food distribution.

Some of the recalled beef ended up in local school districts, which quickly substituted other food. How much of the recalled meat has been consumed nationwide is unknown.

Among regulation changes after the Yakima County case of mad cow was discovered was a ban on putting so-called downer cows, cattle that are sick or injured, into the food supply. Those cattle are believed to be at higher risk for mad-cow disease. Consuming contaminated beef puts people at risk of developing a form of the disease years later.

That's why the video prompting the recall was especially disturbing. Some of the cattle at the California slaughterhouse were so infirm they were being moved or prodded by forklifts. Investigations are ongoing into the company's practices and how inspectors missed these troubling, illegal actions.

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., is calling for meat-industry regulation to be stripped out of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which also has the potential conflict of promoting farm products.

For a decade, Durbin has advocated for improving federal oversight of food safety and has the right idea to consolidate food-safety responsibilities under a single-minded watchdog agency without conflicting promotional responsibilities. Currently, that role is spread among 12 different agencies.

The risks are too great and too frequent not to aggressively attack the weakness of the current system.