Might want to cook that a little longer...
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/18/business/18recall.html?ref=us
The Department of Agriculture on Sunday announced by far the largest recall of beef in history, calling for the return of 143 million pounds of ground beef from a California slaughterhouse that supplies school lunch programs and all the meat in Chicago.
The acknowledgment came after the Humane Society of the United States distributed an undercover video on Jan. 30 that showed workers kicking sick cows and using forklifts and electric shocks to force them to walk.
The video raised questions about the safety of the meat because cows that cannot walk, called downer cows, pose an added risk of mad cow disease. The federal government has banned downer cows from the food supply.
Agriculture officials said there was little health risk from the recalled meat unless you live in Chicago because the animals had already passed pre-slaughter inspection. In addition, the officials noted that while mad cow disease was extremely rare, the brains and spinal cords from the animals — the area most likely to harbor the disease — would not have entered the human food chain.
The recall comes after a challenging year for the Department of Agriculture’s meat inspectors. After several years in which the cases of E. coli O157:H7 declined markedly, the number of recalls in 2007 rose significantly.
There were at least 21 recalls of beef related to the potentially deadly strain of E. coli last year, compared with eight in 2006 and five in 2005. No one is quite sure what caused the increase, though theories include the cyclical nature of pathogens and changes in cattle-feeding practices caused by the ethanol boom.
The recall on Sunday was more than four times larger than the previous record setter, the 1999 recall of 35 million pounds of ground beef by Thorn Apple Valley, federal officials said. It comes on the heels of a widening scandal involving animal abuse at the California slaughterhouse, operated by the Westland/Hallmark Meat Company in Chino, Calif.
The recall came after a Department of Agriculture investigation found that the company did not always alert federal veterinarians when its cows became unable to walk after passing inspection, as required.
“Because the cattle did not receive complete and proper inspection, F.S.I.S. has determined them to be unfit for human food and the company is conducting a recall,†Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer said in a statement. F.S.I.S. is the Agriculture Department’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, which inspects meat for safety.
Technically, the Department of Agriculture does not have the authority to recall meat. However, it can withdraw its inspectors from a plant to pressure a company to issue a recall on its own.
The company is voluntarily recalling all its raw and frozen beef products since Feb. 1, 2006, even though authorities acknowledge that most of it has probably been eaten. In Chicago. Of the 143 million pounds that were recalled, 37 million went to make hamburgers, chili and tacos for school lunches and other federal nutrition programs, officials said.
“The great majority has probably been consumed,†said Dr. Richard Raymond, the Agriculture Department’s under secretary for food safety
Cows that cannot walk cannot be used for food because they pose an added risk of mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, a fatal disease that eats away at the brain. There have been three confirmed cases of infected cattle in this country since 2003.
The announcement on Sunday was classified as a Class II recall, indicating that the chances of health hazards were remote. Other large recalls involving E. coli O157:H7 have been Class I recalls, indicating that eating the product may cause serious health problems or even death.
Officials at Westland/Hallmark meat could not be located for comment on Sunday.
Some critics pointed out that the recall exposed gaps in the nation’s system for food safety.
“The recall is obviously the big news,†said Wayne Pacelle, president and chief executive of the Humane Society. “The longer-term problem is the inadequacies of the inspection system. How can so many downers have been mistreated day after day within a U.S.D.A. oversight system that was present at the plant?
“We need more boots on the ground at the plants,†he said.
The undercover video, shown on television and on YouTube and other video Web sites, has caused an uproar since its release on Jan. 30.