Secretary of Food, not Agriculture?

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

The Consumers Union of the United States says that Secretary of Agriculture designate Tom Vilsack needs a new job title, Secretary of Food.

"More than 65 per cent of the Department of Agriculture's budget relates to food consumption, not production," stated a consumers union press release issued in December after President-elect Barack Obama named former Iowa governor Vilsack to the top ag job in the United States.

The Consumers Union, which publishes the highly regarded and credible Consumer Reports, pointed out that "last year saw the largest meat recall in U.S. history," that one in four Americans contract a food-borne illness annually and that 5,000 die. On top of this, tests by Consumer Reports "found that a majority of U.S. poultry is contaminated with disease-causing bacteria."

The Department of Agriculture (USDA) "needs to get out of the way of companies who want to go above and beyond what the government will do to improve food safety," the release says. "We hope that Secretary-designate Vilsack will lift USDA's current prohibition on slaughter facilities doing their own testing for mad cow disease."

The press release didn't mention that no American has ever been confirmed to have died from disease contracted after eating meat from a mad cow. BF