Meat groups win round in food safety case

Pigs unable to stand can be slaughtered for human consumption, Fresno federal judge rules.

Pigs that can’t stand up on their own may still be butchered and their meat sold for human consumption despite a state law designed to prevent that, a federal judge ruled Thursday in Fresno.

The law, which took effect Jan. 1, made it illegal for anyone to butcher and sell animals too sick to stand. But slaughterhouses argued that the law was too broad and caused meat from healthy animals to go to waste.

At issue was whether the state law could take precedence over a 102-year-old federal law also designed to protect food safety. U.S. District Judge Lawrence J. O’Neill ruled that it couldn’t.

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