Food & Water Watch is denouncing beef imports from Brazil and Argentina. Executive Director Wenonah Hauter released a statement about the USDA lifting restrictions on these imports. Those countries have “a history of the deadly disease of foot and mouth disease in animal herds.”
There has not been a case of FMD in the United States since 1929. Members of Congress ask that the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) study these rules. That has not been done. The process was rushed, since the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) can take up to 90 days to review “significant” rules.
Hauter states, “Brazil and Argentina have checkered food safety records, as USDA has been forced on several occasions to suspend imports of products currently eligible to come into the U.S. for various food safety violations and for failure to meet our inspection standards.
“The lifted restrictions on imports from Brazil and Argentina follow a disturbing trend of lowering food import standards, established by the recent attempt to gut Country of Origin Labeling, in order to pander to the interests of the corporate meatpackers lobby.”
