MAILBAG - Feb. 21, 2008

Beef: It’s what’s hazardous to health

The recent recall of 143 million pounds of beef by the U.S. Department of Agriculture should provide a loud and clear wake up call that federal inspection is not adequate to ensure a safe meat supply.

This largest meat recall in U.S. history was actually brought on by an animal rights organization’s undercover video showing California slaughterhouse workers using kicks, electric shock, high-pressure water hoses, and a forklift to force sick or injured animals onto the kill floor.

USDA regulations prohibit sick animals from entering the food supply, because of the high risk of contamination by E. coli, Salmonella or Mad Cow disease.

About 37 million pounds of the recalled meat went to school lunch and other federal nutrition programs since October 2006, and “almost all of it is likely to have been consumed,” according to a USDA official.

Parents must insist the USDA stop using the National School Lunch Program as a dumping ground for surplus meat and dairy commodities. The rest of us must learn to treat all meat, and particularly ground beef, as a hazardous substance to be consumed at one’s own peril.

HENRY REDFIELD

Huntington Beach

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Lent an opportunity to abide Jesus’ message

Feb. 13 marked the beginning of Lent, the 40-day period preceding Easter when Catholics and other Christians abstain from meat and dairy products in memory of Jesus’ 40 days of fast and prayer before dying on the cross.

With religious devotion yielding to self-indulgence, this devout tradition gradually gave way to meatless Fridays, and eventually, no dietary restriction at all.

Yet, Jesus’ powerful message of compassion and love for all living beings applies in our time more than ever!

It’s a time when animals are raised for food under abject conditions of caging, crowding, deprivation, drugging, mutilation and manhandling. When they are trucked to the slaughterhouse for days without food or water, then bled, skinned and dismembered while still conscious.

It’s a time when wastes from factory farms foul the water we drink and the air we breathe. When meat production accounts for 18% of greenhouse gases responsible for global warming. It’s a time when most chronic killer diseases are linked to consumption of animal products.

Each of us has a personal choice to make.

We can continue to subsidize these sins against nature and Jesus’ teachings with our food dollars. Or we can show our respect for his message by embracing a wholesome, nonviolent diet of vegetables, fruits and grains first mandated in Genesis I-29.

Lent provides a splendid opportunity to explore the rich variety of meat- and dairy-free foods at our favorite supermarket.

HAROLD UNDELL

Huntington Beach

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Opponent Cook will serve better than Dana

Partisanship aside, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher has been an embarrassment to the 46th Congressional District for years, for constituents of all political persuasions. His ineffectiveness and lack of representation is legendary among district communities.

Now that he is without the facade of his Republican majority in Congress, “Do Nothing Dana” will be even more ineffectual and his poor performance made more glaring.

Debbie Cook will effectively represent all of her district constituents as she has effectively represented all of her local constituents as mayor and member of the Huntington Beach City Council.

If all those who are disaffected with Rohrabacher voted their conscience instead of their party, Cook would win in a landslide.

TIM GEDDES

Huntington Beach

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Rep. worked to animals’ benefit

With the death of Rep. Tom Lantos (D-San Mateo), animals have lost one of their greatest advocates, and the world has lost a great man.

We at PETA came to know Lantos when he offered to help us with the Silver Spring monkeys, a group of animals that had been terribly abused in a Maryland laboratory.

I had the honor of interviewing Lantos and his wife, Annette, about their efforts to send these animals to a sanctuary. They showed me a photograph of themselves from 1939, when they were happy childhood friends in Budapest, Hungary.

But they were Jewish, and not long after the picture was taken, Annette went into hiding and Tom was sent to a forced labor camp. Their families were killed in the Holocaust.

These traumatizing experiences, they told me, helped them understand what it was like to be victimized simply because they weren’t like others.

When they came to this country, in the late 1940s, scarred but eager for a new life, they decided that they wanted to work for a new world in which no one — regardless of race, religion, or species — could be treated as an object rather than as a living being.

Lantos did exactly this, founding the Congressional Friends of Animals Caucus, and sponsoring or supporting dozens of pieces of legislation aimed at ending the suffering of humans and other animals.

Even as we mourn his loss, we celebrate his amazing work for all beings.

Director of Research,

People for the Ethical Treatment

of Animals

Norfolk, Va.