Scientist who coined ‘Pink Slime’ reluctant whistleblower
Kansas City (Reuters) – Every time someone calls former U.S. government scientist Gerald Zirnstein a whistleblower, he cringes a little. When he coined the term “Pink Slime” to describe the unlabeled and unappetizing bits of cartilage and other chemically-treated scrap meat going into U.S. ground beef, Zirnstein was a microbiologist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He made the slime reference to a fellow scientist in an internal – and he thought private – email. But that email later became public, and with it came an explosion of outrage from consumer groups. …