Opinion: Beefed-up excuses

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For a moment there, I was feeling sorta sorry for Steve Mendell, the president of the Chino slaughterhouse and meat-processing plant that just gave rise to the biggest beef recall in U.S. history. He acknowledged that cows had been treated inhumanely. He apologized. He sounded believable when he explained not only that none of the downer cows seen on a surreptitious video had gone into the food supply, but that it was impossible because they’d never make it up the chute. And it was nothing any beef processor would do because that would just ruin a business.

Well, at least he was right about the very last phrase. Shown a second videotape, Mendell was forced to acknowledge that at least two of the cows had gone into the food supply. It was clearly something a food processor would do. Had done. This much is true: His business is almost certainly ruined.

The strange thing about this recall is that, in all likelihood, there’s nothing dangerous about the 143 million pounds of beef. Nothing was ever found wrong with any of it. No one seems to have gotten sick from the huge amount that was certainly eaten before the recall ever took effect. But the window it’s given the consumer into how careless both the industry and the watchdogs can be offers one scary vantage point.