Massive Egg Recall Symptom of Larger Food Safety Crisis in Factory Farming

Interview with Patty Lovera, assistant director of the group Food and Water Watch., conducted by Scott Harris

A massive recall of eggs linked to salmonella contamination began on Aug. 13, after the Centers for Disease Control announced the eggs were connected to more than 1,300 reported cases of salmonella poisoning. Overall, a half-billion eggs were recalled nationwide. The Food and Drug Administration has opened a criminal investigation with the Justice Department, as the federal agency looks into the cause of the outbreak.

FDA inspectors who visited Wright County Egg company in Iowa, one of the egg farms at the center of the salmonella outbreak, reported finding rodents, flies, maggots and an 8-foot high pile of chicken manure. Chickens can contract salmonella bacteria from rodent droppings, which pass to the bird's ovaries, and then inside the egg.

Ironically new, stricter FDA regulations on preventing salmonella contamination at large egg farms had gone into effect in July. Between the Lines' Scott Harris spoke with Patty Lovera, assistant director of the group Food and Water Watch. She discusses the egg recall in the context of large-scale factory farming and the danger to consumers without adequate food safety inspections and enforcement.

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