Seventy percent of US hamburger contains up to 25% per pound of "pink slime" which consists of the slaughterhouse floor wastes treated with ammonia and water to kill E. coli and Salmonella bacteria. The problem is, ammonia does NOT inactivate mad cow prions which may be part of the ankle-deep muck of blood, fats, tissue and scraps on the floor: Slaughterhouses are required to remove "SRM" - specified risk materials- the parts of a cow with the highest concentrations of prions. SRM include the skull, brain,ganglia, eyes, tonsils, spinal cord and small intestine. Power tools, including chain saws, are used to cut up the carcasses.. It is unavoidable that potentially prion infected wastes from high risk tissues end up on the blood-soaked slaughterhouse floors - to be incorporated into the pink slime. Alzheimer's is a prion disease - 6 million US victims. www.alzheimers-prions.com/ . Pink slime is a likely pathway to deliver infectious prions to an unsuspecting public, including school children at risk for autism which is approaching epidemic proportions.. The Prion Institute in Alberta, Canada, is studying Autism as a prion disease http://www.prioninstitute.ca/forms/WEBSITE%20AR.pdf Helane Shields, Alton, NH hshields@tds.net

I think it's dreadful that they serve it at all. Whether the FDA approves it or not, it's still disgusting. They should be required to remove it. Why can't they serve healthy food? It shouldn't be that hard to do!! Children deserve to be fed healthy food that's not full of disgusting fillers like pink slime. I know parents have every right to provide their own food for their kids as an alternative to school lunches, but still. Come on! These are little people we are feeding!!! To feed them crap like extra muscles and scraps from the slaughterhouse floor?? Given a choice would anyone eat it? I bet most people that ate fast food didn't know that it was in their food either. If fast food chains are banning it, schools should certainly get rid of it. It's disgusitng. If school kids knew what it was, do you think they would still want to eat it? Totally unfair to pull the wool over their eyes.