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the product BPI produced is safe for consumption.
• "BPI is a good family-owned business, and we will continue to work with them in an effort to continue to promote their safe and healthy beef," Heineman said.
• Several politicians who toured one of the plants in March -- including Branstad, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, Nebraska Lt. Gov. Rick Sheehy and South Dakota Lt. Gov. Matt Michels-- all agreed with the industry view that the beef has been unfairly maligned and mislabeled.
• The public backlash against the product offers an important lesson to other food makers in the social-media age, said Marion Nestle, a nutrition and food-studies

professor at New York University. She noted that past food controversies, such as criticism of trans fats, took years to surface as major public issues, whereas social media enabled the campaign against "pink slime" to quickly attract widespread public attention.
• Nestle also said BPI misinterpreted the public concern as a food-safety issue, instead of recognizing that critics were

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