POISONING PEOPLE - Foodopoly: The Battle Over the Future of Food and Farming in America - page 71

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POISONING PEOPLE
A government, for protecting business only, is but a carcass, and soon falls by its own corruption and decay .
—Amos Bronson Alcott (1799-1888),
Transcendentalist writer and philosopher
It was exciting. Bill Clinton had been elected president and the future held promise for tackling the regu-
latory rollbacks that had changed the face of America over twelve years of Republican rule. But despite the
positive rhetoric, it quickly became clear that Clinton had no intention of changing the privatization and de-
regulation agenda that had swept the country. And no place was this clearer than at the U.S. Department of
Agriculture (USDA).
In January 1993 Clinton appointed the first African American secretary of agriculture to head an agency
notorious for racial discrimination. Advocates wished they could celebrate the momentous event, but Mike
Espy was no progressive. As a fellow member of the conservative Democratic Leadership Council, Espy
was well acquainted with Clinton, and he was one of the first congressmen to endorse him. But Espy's track
record was not comforting. He had appeared in ads for the National Rifle Association, spoken in favor of
the death penalty, supported Reagan's policies on funding the Nicaraguan Contras, voted for Republican-
sponsored budget cuts, and voted against environmental regulations.
Late in January 1993, just as Clinton was entering the White House, America's biggest food safety scan-
dal ever was making big headlines. Jack in the Box, the fifth-largest hamburger chain in the country at
the time, had served contaminated meat, sickening six hundred people and killing three toddlers. E. coli
0157:H7 was the culprit.
From the food industry's point of view, Espy was an ideal candidate for the job of deregulating food-
safety regulations under the guise of reform. The meat industry had long wanted to get USDA inspectors
out of the way, because if they saw contamination, they could stop the line and thereby cut industry profits.
If global food trade was to proceed, a new system was necessary to reduce government inspections. The
United States had the most vigilant system of inspecting meat in the world, and it was slowing down “pro-
gress.” While deregulation had long been in the works, the hamburger that poisoned consumers in the Pa-
cific Northwest was both a public relations challenge and an opening for changing the inspection system.
The meat-and-food-processing industry was among the biggest proponents of “free trade,” and it needed
to “harmonize” food standards with other countries to prepare for the globalization it was lobbying for
through trade agreements. The vertically integrated meat companies saw both the potential for new markets
in the developing world and locations for factory farms where environmental regulations were scant. Clinton
and Espy, both fans of deregulation and liberalizing trade, were easily persuaded that the harmonization the
meat industry wanted was necessary. The stage was set to make big changes, and together Clinton and Espy
represented a dangerous combination.