Within the food industry, being a whistleblower is a risky business. Public health attorney Amanda Hitt is the Food Integrity Campaign director for the Government Accountability Project (GAP), and she has made it her life’s work to ensure it is safe for whistleblowers to come forward.
Through her dedication to keeping food honest, Hitt has helped bring attention to such food atrocities like Beef Products, Inc. “pink slime” and unsanitary practices in a supermarket chain’s handling of meat. Recently, legislation has been introduced that would criminalize undercover videotaping of food processing operations.
“These are anti-whistleblower statutes,” said Hitt in an interview with Organic Connections. “If you have a whistleblower who needs his or her disclosure to be validated, we very often see the use of recording devices to do that. Many times we can’t vindicate these people or validate their claims without this sort of mechanical third party—the use of a camera or recording device.”
Read more in Organic Connections.