I guess I need to put my two cents in and I am only speaking from my plant experiences.

There are side-pullers, and up-pullers and down pullers and every packer has them. They cost a fortune to install and just as much to  training  the operators. That being said man has been skinning cattle since Moses came down the mountain with the tablets and probably before that too. Cattle were skinned on the ground from a tree, I even saw a farmer skin a old Holstein using is 4-wheeler to pull the hide off. LOL> I kid you not! 

We all know the hide has to come off, and that my friends is the beginning point of potential cross contamination. The packer spends billions of dollars over the years to fight cross-contamination. I have to giggle when I hear the  "organic" marketing people say buy as much organic meat as you can because it is more safe. Oh yea Mr. Marketing man I guess you guys put slings under the animals butt to catch the dung or maybe you put hip boots on the hind legs, or maybe even yet you never ever let an animal walk around in a pasture. Talk about bull-s---- piled hip deep.

The so called super-bug 0157 comes only from one source, fecal contamination. Whether that contamination is from the animal itself or from a strawberry picker who did his business and forgot to wash his hands before he picked those big-red-juicy-berries. 0157 is out there everyday all day.

 On cattle you find it is on the surface. Now it could also be found in the intestinal tract, this is why packers pay top-rate to gutters. These guys really know what they are doing guys. They would make any gut-surgeon look like armatures. They gut at warp speed and on top of that, they are moving on a stainless steel table, as the carcass is moves on rail, Oh did I forget to mention at sometimes 250 head per hour. Talk about a circus act. LOL>

0157 is so small that 40,000 bugs can fit on the tip of a sewing needle and they get in the nook and crannies of the exterior of the carcass. This is why packers spend so much money on spray-wash units to douse these little devils. FSIS inspectors along with company QA and line workers are at different points along the kill floor lines to make sure every speck that can be identified can be sliced away. And every slice of the knife cost the packer money. 

I AM NOW LATE FOR WORK SO I WILL FINISH THIS REPLY LATTER TONIGHT.