The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "meat" ...
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Danger on Your Dinner Plate
The food industry has quietly taken over most of the role of the FDA in inspecting what Americans eat, as inspection firms paid by food makers have certified as safe meat and vegetables that have sickened millions and killed thousands of people. After the story, the FDA passed strict food safety rules and for the first time required certification of private inspectors.
Tags: Food industry; FDA; food safety; meat; vegetables; private inspection firms
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CHE: Scientists Shilling for Beef Industry
Agriculture school scientists are singing the praises of drugs that supersize beef cattle-- even though the resulting meat is tough and tasteless. The drugs' effects on animal health, human health, and the environment are even less appetizing. Guess who is sponsoring their research.
Tags: agriculture; beef cattle; meat; animal health; food safety
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Hot Trucks
Amidst widespread reports of food safety recalls and food borne illness outbreak, WTHR's "Hot Trucks" exposed a gaping hole in the safety net of our nation's food supply. The 6-month investigation revealed tons of meat, seafood, dairy products, produce, and other perishable food items are transported to grocery stores and restaurants every day under unsafe and unsanitary conditions that pose a serious health threat to millions of Americans.
Tags: Food Safety
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Poisoned
“Africa’s lions are in trouble” and the reason why was because they are being poisoned. The lions are found outside protected game reserves, where they mingle with cattle. The lions kill the cattle and eat them; the cattle are a large percent of revenue for the population and puts food on the table. As a solution, cattle herders have begun using pesticides to kill the lions and protect their cattle.
Tags: Kenya; meat; market; Furadan; animals; protection; rights; wildlife; conservationists; creature
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Postville Series
Postville, Iowa lost a third of its population on May 12, 2008 when the Dept. of Homeland Security raided a kosher meat-packing plant that resulted in nearly 400 undocumented workers were detained.
Tags: false identity; illegal immigrant; green card; Agriprocessors; St. Bridget's Catholic Church; union;
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Agriprocessors and Beyond: Inside the Kosher Meat Industry
This series of articles looked inside the kosher meat industry, a quietly guarded world worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The reporting began two years ago when the Forward's Nathaniel Popper wrote about the working conditions at the nation's largest kosher slaughterhouse, Agriprocessors, in Postville, Iowa, setting off a wide-ranging debate in Jewish community. The paper has continued to follow the problems at Agriprocessors and reported early in 2008 on the debate withing the kosher industry about a widely used but apparently cruel method of kosher slaughter known as shackled and hoist. Then, in the middle of the year, federal agents, citing the Forward's reporting raided the Agriprocessors' plant in Iowa. Since the raid, the Forward has followed each legal development, but has also reported on elements of the story that were being overlooked. The first such article detailed the way in which Agriprocessors had handled immigrants and unions at its Brooklyn warehouse-sparking a case that went to the Supreme Court. The next set of articles investigated the working conditions in the rest of the kosher eat industry, with particular attention paid to the labor battles at Agriprocessors' biggest competitor, Alle Processing, which had been completely ignored. The article and chart on industry-wide conditions were the first effort to systematically set down the relative size and production of the major players in the kosher meat industry. The Forward also wrote a lengthy report on the immigrant workers from Agriprocessors who had been released from prison and ordered to testify in federal court against their supervisors, but were given no means to support themselves before the hearing date. After Agriprocessors declared bankruptcy, the Forward reported on the unnoticed consequences for the town and its inhabitants, from the lowly turkeys to the local bankers.
Tags: meat processing; kosher meat; agriculture; Agriprocessors; meatpacking; immigrant workers
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In Iowa Meat Plant, Kosher 'Jungle' Breeds Fear; Injury, Short Pay
Nathaniel Popper, reporting for the Forward (NY) investigated a Kosher slaughterhouse in Postville, Iowa, where he uncovered dangerous working conditions, low pay, and anti-unionization pressures that raised questions about the ethics of the Jewish owners of the plant towards their largely immigrant workers.
Tags: Agriprocessors; Occupational Safety and Health Administration; slaughterhouse workers; Latin American immigrants; accidental amputations; Postville, Iowa; union "devils"; animal rights group; health and safety violations; Conservative Jewish synagogue movement; Kosher certification; Orthodox Judaism; immigration authorities; ethics; United Food and Commercial Workers; Father Floyd Paul Ouderkirk; Sholom Rubashkin; Caitlin Didier; Lubavitch Hasidim; Stephen Bloom; "Postville"; PETA; undocumented immigrants; Human Rights Watch; Rabbi Morris Allen; Rabbinical Council of America; Orthodox Union
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Grocery Chains sit out Detroit's Rebirth
Detroit is virtually without chain grocers that promise consistent quality, and stores in the city have food safety violations at about twice the statewide rate for problems such as selling rotten meat and expired infant formula, a Free Press examination found.From 2003 to 2006, just 25 percent of the city's grocery stores were free of critical violations, defined as those that directly contribute to food contamination or illness.
Tags: food safety; health; grocery stores; city quality; food contamination
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"Downer Cow Controversy"
This investigation began by raising questions about the lack of federal inspection outside a slaughterhouse and the treatment of cows. Particularly it raised questions about health risks involving "downer" cows -- weak, sick or crippled dairy cows processed into beef for the kitchen table. The state's beef and dairy commissions, state agencies funded by fees attached to beef and dairy products, criticized the station's reports. The television station was tried in abstentia by the Washington News Council and found to have been unfair to the beef industry. The station earlier had refused to participate in the arbitration, saying its reports were accurate and that the council itself is partial. On Dec. 23, the first U.S. case of mad cow was announced. The animal was a downer cow processed at the same slaughterhouse that was the subject of the station's initial investigation.
Tags: beef; cattle; mad cow; downer cows; USDA; dairy; E. coli; food safety; meat-packing plants; slaughterhouse
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Opportunity of Exploitation?
These stories deal with how a company, Maxi Staff Inc., used promises of good pay, great housing and the chance to escape poverty and high unemployment to recruit laborers for Puerto Rico to work in U.S. meat processing plants. The stories revealed how, once they were in the United States, the laborers' dreams turned to dust and they found themselves in an unfavorable economic situation. The company charged recruits for the recruits' flights to the U.S. They were put in substandard and unsanitary housing. Workers made less money than they had originally been told, often making less than $100 for a 40-hour week. Recruits who fell ill or got injured on the job were fired and evicted from their housing with 48 hours notice.
Tags: Maxi Staff Inc.; poverty; unemployment; Puerto Rican Laborers; U.S. meat processing plants; U.S. Department of Labor; Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration; Puerto Rico Department of Labor and Human Resources; Ronell Industries; Empire Kosher; Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry; Catholic Social Services; Council of Spanish Speaking Organizations; Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church; U.S. Department of Labor's Employment Standards Administration Wage and Hour Division; OSHA; Puerto Rican recruits; Pennsylvania Statewide Latino Coalition