Free Skinny Bitch by Rory Freedman Page B

USDA sure has tough rules governing the safety of our country’s meat.
    The USDA’s web site describing the NAIS actually has a section on “confidentiality.” It reads, “The NAIS will contain only information necessary for animal health officials to be able to track suspect animals and identify any other animals that may have been exposed to a disease. . . . To help assure participants that the information will be used only for animal health purposes, the information must be confidential. USDA and its State partners will work to protect data confidentiality.”166 What the fuck? The USDA will protect the data confidentiality of farms that are supplying the public with contaminated meat? Why don’t they just give all the ranchers blowjobs, too?
    Many savvy consumers are catching on, and they know they cannot trust the USDA. According to the Organic Consumers Association, “Lester Friedlander, a former USDA veterinarian, says he was told by USDA officials as far back as 1991 that if his testing ever found evidence of Mad Cow disease, he was to tell no one. He and other scientists say they know of cases where cows tested positive for the disease in laboratories but were ruled negative by the USDA.”167 Trust no one!
    Illegal hormones are regularly pumped into veal calves, which are suspected of increasing the growth of cancer cells in the humans who eat them. The USDA has not only been accused of overlooking these practices, but also of falsifying lab results, altering records, and pressuring staff to lie about events.168 Even the selfish whores who eat veal don’t deserve that.
    Business First
    None of us deserved to be deceived all these years by the preposterous USDA Dietary Guidelines and Food Pyramid, either. In 1998, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) filed a federal lawsuit against the USDA and the Department of Health and Human Services. PCRM claimed that federal laws were violated when the USDA selected six out of eleven people with financial ties to various food industries to serve on the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee. The committee members’ affiliations included the American Meat Institute, National Livestock and Beef Board, the American Egg Board, the National Dairy Promotion and Research Program, the National Dairy Council, Dannon Company (yogurt), Mead Johnson Nutritionals (milk-based infant formulas), Nestlé (milk-based formulas, ice cream, condensed milk), and Slim-Fast (milk-based diet products).169 How dare they?
    (On a sidenote, PCRM also charged that the Dietary Guidelines
    —which recommended dairy products—were racially biased, because most nonwhites are lactose-intolerant.170 According to Johnson & Johnson, lactose intolerance affects “over 50 percent of the Hispanic American population, 75 percent of Native Americans, 80 percent of African Americans, and 90 percent of Asian Americans.”171 Why does Johnson & Johnson care about the millions of minorities suffering from lactose intolerance? Because they can target these individuals for buying Lactaid, a product they hawk for aiding in dairy digestion.
    Even though you are lactose intolerant and your body thoroughly rejects dairy products, eat them anyway. Just buy and take our drug so you don’t feel sick afterwards. Ugh, that just makes us sick with rage.) Got $19 billion? The milk industry does, so they’ve got the USDA in their back pocket.172 The California Milk Processor Board (CMPB) was established in 1993 to increase milk sales in California.
    They were responsible for the campaigns that targeted children:
    “Got milk?” and “Milk. It does a body good.” The CMPB is funded by all California milk processors, but administered by the California Department of Food and Agriculture. The National Fluid Milk Processor Promotion Board (Fluid Board) conceived of the “Milk Mustache” campaign, which targets young adults. The USDA’s Agriculture Monitoring Service administers the Fluid