The office is closed for Memorial Day, but I am here working on my speech (title above) to be given at the NEHA conference next week.  I am supposed to cover:

What’s behind the shiny abattoir walls of contemporary slaughterhouses? After all the regulation, safety protocols, worker initiatives, and animal rights action, we still have millions of pounds of beef recalled every year due to contamination with deadly pathogens like E. coli O157:H7 and its toxic cousins. Hundreds are sickened, many are permanently injured, and there are still deaths. Why can’t we get it right? Food safety attorney Bill Marler will address the many challenges facing the meat industry and the consumers who eat their product. In addition to the discouraging list of what isn’t working in the system, he will present a list of proactive steps that can be taken to improve the safety of the American meat supply.

And, I have only 50 minutes?  By the way, did you know that that in 1906 the US population was only 85,450,000 and today it hit 309,388,000.  Per capita beef consumption was 71.1 pounds in 1906, today about 60.0 pounds.  And, we had, and have, a black and white President: