toxins

Are you killing yourself ?

For the Western world,I guess the word 'hamburger' is simply synonymous with food or water.But would you believe that this popular favourite of millions can spell death for you just as well? The reknowned master of medical thrillers, Robin Cook,portrays just that in his latest best-seller "TOXIN" and it certainly sends more than just a shiver up your spine!Scroll on for a few excerpts from the book where the protagonist,Dr.Kim Reggis teams up with a USDA official to inspect a meat packing company.
* * * * * * * "When I think about hamburger,"Marsha said,"I'm surprised anyone eats it.Now,I am a committed vegitarian.It turns my stomach when I think of what hamburger has in it."Marsha said.
"What do you mean ?"Kim said."It's muscle."
"Muscle and a bunch of other stuff,"Marsha said. "Have you ever heard of the Advanced Meat Recoverey System ? It's a high pressure device that they use to clean every scrap off cattle bones.It results in a gray slurry that they dye red and add to the hamburger."
"That's disgusting,"Kim said.
"And central nervous tissue,"Marsha said."Like spinal cord.That gets into hamburger all the time.And that's worse than it sounds.You've heard of mad cow disease ? ...We don't have it yet,but it's just a matter of time. Do you know what is thought to have caused it in England ?"
"I believe it's thought to have come from feeding rendered sheep to the cows,"Kim said."Sheep that were sick with scrapie,the sheep equivalent."
"Exactly,"Marsha said."And in this country there's supposed to be a ban on feeding rendered sheep to the cows.But you know something,there's no enforcement and I was told by insiders that as many as a quarter of the renderers admit in private they don't pay any attention to the ban."
* * * * * * *
( Later he gets himself employed into a slaughterhouse to seek conclusive evidence that his daughter died after consuming a burger.The infected meat comes from the establishment which is silently making millions while also spreading a fatal virus. )

" I've come to where the live animals enter the building.They're funnelled into single file.When the lead animal comes abreast of an elevated platform,a man presses what lookes like a jackhammer against the top of its head.It sounds like a nailgun.It must shoot a bolt into their skulls because I can see brain tissue spatter out. "
" The cows immediately collapse onto a large,rotating drum that throws them forward and upbends them.Then a worker hooks them behind the Achilles tendon and they are hoisted up onto the over-head conveyer. "
" If we get mad cow disease in this country,killing the animals like this will not be a good idea.It's undoubtedly sending emboli of brain tissue throughout the cow's body since the cows' hearts are still beating. "
" You know something ?These hapless steers somehow know what's coming.They must smell death in here.They're defecating all over as they come down the chute.That certainly can't help the contamination..."

Kim had moved all the way around the eviscerating area and now had a view of the whole slaughtering process.He could see the cows being killed,hoisted up and their throats being slit.Next they were skinned and decapitated.After the evisceration,the carcasses were sawed in half,lengthwise by a frightful saw far beyond the gruesome conceptions of Hollywood horror movie producers.
Kim glanced at his watch to time the rapidity with which the animals were killed.He was astonished.He spoke into the microphone "It's going to be a snap to document Marsha's major point.She said the problem concerning contamination in the meat industry was in the slaughterhouse.She said it was simply profit over safety,I just timed the activity here. They are slaughtering the cattle at the unbelievable rate of one every twelve seconds.At that speed,there is no way to avoid gross contamination."
"Up on the catwalks there are a few inspectors.But they are doing more laughing and joking with the workers than inspecting.Not only is the line moving too fast,these guys are hardly even looking at the carcasses as they whip by."
Kim watched for a moment as the head conveyer dumped a head every twelve seconds onto a table where it was attacked by a team of butchers.Knives similar to the ones used to slit the animals' throats quickly cut out the huge cheek muscles and the tongues.The workers took this meat and tossed them into a two-thousand pound combo-bin."I'm learning something every minute,"Kim said.
"There must be a lot of cow cheeks in hamburgers."