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The United States should ban from the human food supply livestock that cannot walk to slaughter. Toward that end, Congress should pass, and President Bush should sign, the Downed Animal and Food Safety Protection Act.

Legislators have allowed both House and Senate versions of the act to languish in committee since early last year. Congress should move on these bills - H.R. 661, sponsored by Rep. David Ackerman, D-N.Y., and S. 394, sponsored by Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii - to ensure food safety and to help stop the animal abuse so horrifically illustrated at the Hallmark slaughterhouse in Chino.

Advocates of allowing downed livestock into the human food supply object to lost farm income, and that's a valid concern for an animal's owner. Livestock processed into products for non-human consumption loses most of its value.

But the mere possibility of allowing downers into the food supply ensures that more of them will be delivered to slaughterhouses. A 2002 Colorado State University survey found that, among cattle, 90 percent of downers are dairy cows, that most leave the farm in bad condition and that proper care would have prevented 80 percent of them from going to market in a downed state.

If slaughterhouses can't accept downers, dairy farmers will likely take better care of them to begin with and deliver them to market before they are too old and infirm to stand.

Food safety is also a concern with downed livestock. They are more prone to carry E. coli bacteria and salmonella. BSE, better known as mad cow disease, is rare but more likely to occur in less-healthy animals.

If livestock does become unable to stand, whether on the farm or at a slaughterhouse, whoever has possession at the time should immediately euthanize and dispose of the animal, whether through processing into non-food products or by other means.

Allowing the continued slaughter of animals that cannot walk invites inhumane treatment. The Hallmark employees videotaped by the Humane Society abusing cows to get them standing again may not be representative of the industry. But neither is the Hallmark case an isolated example of animal cruelty.

In 2007, the Food Safety and Inspection Service issued 66 suspensions of slaughterhouse operations. Twelve of the suspensions were for egregious humane handling violations.

Those are the 12 incidents witnessed by FSIS inspectors. There's no way to know what they don't catch, as was the case at Hallmark.

Akaka and Ackerman have introduced the Downed Animal Projection Act in each session of Congress going back to 1991. The legislators' persistence and foresight are praiseworthy. The outrage at Hallmark should be all the evidence they need to finally convince their colleagues that downed livestock do not belong in line at a slaughterhouse.