LOS ANGELES — The U.S. Department of Agriculture's twin mandates of promoting the nation's agriculture and monitoring it for safety are being questioned in the wake of a beef contamination scare that prompted the nation's largest-ever meat recall.
Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro, a Connecticut Democrat who chairs the House subcommittee responsible for the USDA's funding, called Tuesday for the USDA to be stripped of its responsibility for food safety.
"Food safety ought to be of a high enough priority in this nation that we have a single agency that deals with it and not an agency that is responsible for promoting a product, selling a product and then as an afterthought dealing with how our food supply is safe," DeLauro said.
She made her remarks during a conference call with reporters about the recall of some 143 million pounds of beef products dating to Feb. 1, 2006, from Chino-based Westland/Hallmark Meat Co.
A phone message left for Westland president Steve Mendell was not immediately returned.
Read the full Associated Press story here.
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