Green Beret finds mercury in meat from commissary

Green Beret finds mercury in meat from commissary
Military officials launch investigation into source of deadly contamination

The military has launched an investigation into the discovery of a liquid metal that appeared to be mercury in a package of ground beef sold to a former Green Beret by a base store at Homestead Air Force Reserve Base in Florida.

"What troops consume is very important," Judd Anstey, a spokesman for the Army Air Force Exchange Service, told WND. "Our office is investigating as well as the vendor."

"We're certainly all very concerned about what this customer believes he found," added Anstey, whose AAFES organization runs many of the military commissaries providing staples to service members.

The report comes from Pat Heminger, a former Green Beret with 23 years in the U.S. Army. Now retired, he and his wife live not far from Homestead, where during the week they take care of grandchildren ages 6 and 8, whose parents work at a hospital.

A WND reader had looked into the situation, and said, "The crux of this issue is the purposeful poisoning of foodstuffs distributed by a military commissary and the only question at this point is whether this represents the first attack on the food supply that deliberately targeted military personnel and their families."

Heminger told WND his granddaughter actually noticed the contamination, and if she actually ingested any of the substance that is considered a neurotoxin, she hasn't exhibited any symptoms.

"I was concerned because I had never seen drops of mercury in the bottom of a kid's bowl of food," Heminger said.

The ground beef had been purchased at a combination commissary and base exchange store at Homestead several weeks ago. Stored frozen, Heminger and his wife had gotten it out to prepare lunch for their grandchildren.

"She took some rice prepared the previous day, and cooked it up with ground beef," Heminger said. "She chopped up some pieces of potato and cooked it up."

The children were eating when all of a sudden the girl said something.

"Grandpa, there's some metal in my food," she told him.

Heminger said he pushed aside the food and saw several small globs of what appeared to be a metal in the bowl. He pushed them together and they came together into a larger ball of metal, he said.

"I poured the contents into a shot glass, then into a ziplock bag," he said.

The next day he returned to the store to talk to the manager, who said there were no thermometers, which used to use mercury, or other items in the food processing department, and they didn't know how it got into the meat.

"They kind of shrugged it off," Heminger said. He then went to base security, but they weren't interested in even taking a statement, he said.

Heminger returned home, but soon got a telephone call from the commissary manager asking him to return.

He did, and handed over the fragment of metal for the military to analyze, he told WND.

The ground beef had been labeled with a "sell-by date" of June 8, which means Heminger probably bought it in the few days before that.

And he's concerned.

"Somewhere along the line, that got into the meat somehow," he said. "Maybe [someone] in a meatpacking plant jammed a thermometer into a carcass."

Anstey said the preliminary portions of the investigation show there were 72 other pound packages of ground beef prepared at the store that same day, and there have been no other complaints.

He also said the investigation has revealed – so far – no explanation for the presence of a metal such as mercury in the food.

Heminger just added this: "It's a good thing [my granddaughter] is a vigilant little girl."

WND calls to the commissary were not returned, and officials with the U.S. Air Force Reserve said they couldn't comment.

But medical sources say mercury can be ingested or its vapors can be inhaled. It is liquid at room temperature, and inside the body, can damage the brain, the kidneys or an unborn baby.

"The nervous system is very sensitive to all forms of mercury," said one government report. "Exposure can cause tremors, memory loss and changes in personality, vision and hearing."

"Children … are especially sensitive to the harmful effects of mercury on the nervous system," it said.

The report of the contamination follows a series of reports from WND documenting poisoned pet food, seafood unfit for human consumption because it was produced in sewage-contaminated water, toys and fireworks that were dangerous, electrical products that failed to meet safety standards, even honey that had been tainted with a potentially life-threatening antibiotic.

All of those products have originated in China, officials have confirmed.