KCRA & the Safeway Meat Scandal (11)
Who had made these findings? A USDA-certified chemist in Los Angeles. What was the extent of the violations? He said they'd been found in nine of the eleven stores sampled. Disposition of this particular case? None as yet. San Francisco Superior Court had gotten it in early January. Ross added that the charges had been filed on behalf of people whose health might be seriously endangered--people on doctors' orders to eat only lean meat because of heart conditions and similar disorders.
The cases became more varied as Ross continued.
He told me an Oakland insurance agent had bought a few Safeway pork chops, found a green, pus-like substance on one of them, and had a lab check it out. The green, pus-like substance? According to Ross, it was rat excrement. When the local store manager found out about the results, he had allegedly tried to buy the lab report--for twenty dollars. That case was now in an Oakland court.
Then there was the case of non-inspected meat allegedly marked "USDA Prime" and "USDA Choice." Ross said that more than 200 samples purchased at 25 San Francisco Bay Area markets bore the labels "USDA Prime" and "USDA Choice"--when they were actually cuts of fish and meat the USDA does not inspect. Ross told me the 200 or so samples--meat, wrappers, labels, and all--had been presented as evidence to a San Francisco court in another class-action lawsuit.
