After an entire column's worth of headhunting last week, in which I felt I scored an undisputed TKO over Eric "Fast Food Nation" Schlosser's anti-industry activism, imagine my surprise when the author himself came back counterpunching in a series of memos.

Below are a few highlights of what proved to be an interesting exchange.

Schlosser says: I read your critique of my Vanity Fair piece with great interest. I believe that people in good faith can disagree about these issues. [However], the central flaw of your editorial is this: Big Government already controls our lives, and that government is now wholly owned and operated by a handful of corporations.

That's not a paranoid fantasy. My investigation of USDA's policies over the last 20 years – from its harassment of small meatpackers to its cozy relationship with the big boys – suggests that it is a fact.

In all honesty, you must admit that this industry has fought against every single food-safety initiative dating back to 1906, from the prohibition of dangerous chemicals used to disguise spoiled meat to the tough BSE feed rules proposed in 1996.

As a trade journalist, you would be doing this industry a favor by pointing out its short-sighted policies, instead serving as its cheerleader.

Murphy replies: I was sincere when I stated that you're a terrific writer, and by that I mean [someone] with an intellectual capacity seldom seen in most commentators.

So – as a smart guy – you should recognize that much of what you wrote in VF was straight from the playbook of the Government Accountability Project, Public Citizen, CSPI and S.T.O.P. The very phrases you used resonate with their message: Big Meatpacking is evil, and only rigorous government prosecution can "fix" the problem.

The reality is this: "Big Meatpacking" got big for one reason: The threat of liability due to food-safety incidents. Thanks to activists pounding a drumbeat that microbial contaminants could be "eliminated" – if only meat companies cared enough to do the right thing – most of the good, ethical, family-run, medium-sized meat companies have sold out to the big boys in the past decade. They know that they can't guarantee 100 percent fail-safe food safety, and if they ever got involved with a major recall, the financial hit would destroy the company.

So at the same time that activists (including yourself, apparently) rail against "mega-meat plants," the very push to create a zero-risk mentality among thought leaders and policymakers is exactly the reason the industry has become so consolidated.

Schlosser replies: Wrong. I have not fallen under the influence of any activists. I did most of the reporting for "Fast Food Nation" and reached my own conclusions before spending time with people from those groups.

A few thoughts to consider:

  

If microbiological performance standards (including those for E. coli O157:H7) are based on such poor science [as you argued], why do all the leading fast-food chains now require them? If big meatpackers are willing to do testing for their major customers, why is it such an outrage to suggest that ordinary American consumers deserve the same thing?

Consolidation in the meatpacking industry began long before any USDA food-safety crackdown; it was encouraged by the fast-food chains and the Reagan administration. Even President [Dwight] Eisenhower, God bless him, favored tough antitrust enforcement and would never have allowed the current oligopolies to control our food system. Tyson Foods, with its unprecedented market power in both the poultry and beef industries, really has no right to exist – unless you believe in state socialism.

What about Foster Farms or Texas-American? Those two mid-sized companies are proof that this industry can produce meat in a way that is safe, ethical and cost-efficient. Small processing plants consistently show lower rates of contamination than the mega-plants, so maybe if USDA stopped harassing smaller operators and focused on the real offenders (big companies), family-owned businesses wouldn't be forced out of business.

Murphy's last word: Hasn't Tyson suffered enough?

But seriously, if you know anything about bacterial pathogens, you know that they're virtually impossible to fully destroy. But instead of embracing a technology – irradiation – that could have saved lives, S.T.O.P. and its ideological brethren managed to convince consumers that the technology is dangerous and little more than a politically motivated attempt by "Big Meat" to "cover up its dirty operations."

Nothing could be further from the truth. Yet nobody at S.T.O.P. I've ever interviewed seems even remotely interested in even exploring the potential of irradiation. Why? Because it would shatter the mindset that says Big Business is the enemy and Big Government is the savior.

Both assertions are wrong, in my viewpoint, and your contention that meat industry consolidation could have been slowed, halted or even reversed belies the normal market forces that cycle through every mature industry. There were more than a dozen car makers that were absorbed, merged or went under following World War II. Why? Because auto manufacturing – like meatpacking – is a capital- and labor-intensive industry where the barriers to entry are high and the cost of failure is severe.

So even without the bandwagoning from activists to ramp up the regulatory pressure (and the accompanying legal liability that always follows such activity) on meat companies, one would predict significant industry consolidation. Add in a legal system that puts the industry in its cross-hairs and the consolidation only accelerates.

The more that the bar is raised on food safety – and S.T.O.P., et al, wants meat to be absolutely foolproof – with intervention technologies such as steam pasteurization cabinets, antimicrobial sprays and post-processing treatments like activated lactoferrin, the more it guarantees that the few independent family operations still around will eventually be forced out.

As for your most outrageous argument: If your premise is correct, and Big Government has been co-opted by Big Business, then why has the marketplace undergone such dramatic change over the past decades? Even the fast-food firms you denigrate have radically revamped their menus, reduced the fat and calories and become more receptive to consumer demands.

Maybe – just maybe – our system of free enterprise regulated (albeit unevenly) via representative democracy is actually working. And maybe – just maybe – we don't need the prescription the activist community would like to put in place: Hand over even more far-reaching powers to Big Government.

Anyway, one final question: Why couldn't a guy with your talent be on the same side as me? I'm sick of battling people with skills. I vastly prefer taking down ignorant, uninformed losers who can't argue their way out of a paper McDonald's bag.

It beats cheerleading any day.