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Company Orders Largest Recall of Ground Beef
By ANDREW MARTIN, Ana Facio Contreras and Comments Dr. Beth
Dupree
Published: February 18, 2008
A California meat company on Sunday issued the largest beef recall in history,
143 million pounds, some of which was used in school lunch programs, Department
of Agriculture officials announced.
The recall by the Westland/Hallmark Meat Company, based in Chino, Calif., comes
after a widening animal-abuse scandal that started after the Humane Society of
the United States distributed an undercover video on Jan. 30 that showed workers
kicking sick cows and using forklifts 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 diseases including 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
because the animals had already passed pre-slaughter inspection and much of the
meat had already been eaten. 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 great majority has probably been consumed,” said Dr. Richard Raymond, the
Agriculture Department’s under secretary for food safety.
The video was embarrassing for the Department of Agriculture, as inspectors are
supposed to be monitoring slaughterhouses for abuse. It surfaced after a year of
increasing concerns about the safety of the meat supply amid a sharp increase in
the number of recalls tied to a particularly deadly form of the E. coli
pathogen.
There were 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 bigger than the previous record,
the 1999 recall of 35 million pounds of ground beef by Thorn Apple Valley,
federal officials said.
It was prompted by a Department of Agriculture investigation that found that
Westland/Hallmark 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.
Technically, the Department of Agriculture does not have the authority to recall
meat. However, it can withdraw its inspectors from a plant, putting pressure on
a company to issue a recall.
The company is recalling all its raw and frozen beef products since Feb. 1,
2006. 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.
Cows that cannot walk are banned for use in the food supply 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
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 on Sunday for comment.
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 Web sites,
has caused an uproar since its release.
The Department of Agriculture started an inquiry and suspended the company as a
supplier to federal nutrition programs. Steve Mendell, president of
Westland/Hallmark, said afterward that he was “shocked and horrified” by the
videos and voluntarily suspended operations pending the outcome of the federal
inquiry.
On Friday, the San Bernardino district attorney, Michael A. Ramos, filed animal
cruelty charges against two employees fired by the meat company. Daniel Agarte
Navarro was charged with five felonies and three misdemeanors, and Luis Sanchez
with three misdemeanors.
While acknowledging that most of the meat had been eaten, agriculture officials
said the recall was necessary to find all the meat that had not been consumed
and because the plant was not following the rules.
“The reason for doing this is because the plant was not in compliance with
F.S.I.S. regulations, and therefore it is an unfit product,” said Dr. Kenneth
Petersen, assistant administrator for the F.S.I.S.
Department of Agriculture inspectors conduct pre-slaughter inspections on all
cattle on the day of slaughter. If an animal becomes unable to walk, before or
at the time it is presented for slaughter, employees of the slaughterhouse are
required to summon a Department of Agriculture veterinarian.
The veterinarian then has the discretion to determine whether the animal is fit
for slaughter. The Department of Agriculture contends that employees at
Westland/Hallmark sometimes failed to notify the veterinarian when animals could
not walk after being inspected.
Agriculture officials said in a statement that they thought the case was “an
isolated incident of egregious violations to humane handling requirements and
the prohibition of non-ambulatory disabled cattle from entering the food
supply.”
The Department of Agriculture, which is responsible for the safety of meat,
poultry and eggs, has 7,800 inspectors who check more than 6,200 plants. In
2007, the agency suspended 66 plants; 12 of which were related to humane
handling violations.
Comments: Ground beef is one of the unhealthiest meat forms you can eat.
Ground beef isn't made from one cow. Hundreds of meat processors send there
leftover and fatty pieces of good cuts, and meat that isn't used in select cuts,
to one central possessing plants processes millions of pounds into various size
chubs that are sent to local distributors. The meat processors also adjust the
fat content into 90/10, 80/20 and so on. The brown meat is then dyed red to make
it more appealing to consumers. Large supermarket chains and smaller
distribution centers then repackage into the smaller trays that you buy. The
beef may spend up to a week in trucks or warehouses until you buy it.
Due to the large demand and growing numbers of illness complaints, many processors are crying out for irradiation which would allow them to keep beef from spoiling for up to 20 days and allow them to re-irradiate beef that has begun to spoil. Irradiation causes the break down and changing of proteins in the ground beef and activates the prions that cause mad cow disease.
To save money and waste, large farms routinely grind up other dead or diseased animals of any kind and feed them to all of their animals. Cows are kept in very small pens that they cannot sit down in. They stand night and day in their own waste. They are feed special diets of alot of corn, sorghum and other cheep grains to fatten them up quick, since they are butchered before 2 years of age. This grain diet keeps them in a constant state of acidity; which causes all sorts of illness. Many cows throw up this unnatural diet so they are feed daily, in-tubated. Of course all these disease causing practices leads to daily feeding of antibiotics to stop the spread of disease.
Mass production beef sends quite a large number of cattle through the processing plant while still alive! They have no concern about the suffering of the cattle. Now if your not really concerned about this for moral reasons, you should be concerned for health reasons. If an animal doesn't die instantly all sorts of hormones, and adrenalin course through the meat, which you then ingest.
Even Grass fed and Organic Ground beef is often processed the same way. The only way to get quality, healthy ground beef is to either buy the organic cuts from a local butcher and grind it yourself or buy it from blackwing meats.
Blackwing meats gets all of their beef and bison from local Amish farmers who process the beef is small 1-3 cow lots, and immediately freezes the various cuts and ground beef or bison for absolute freshness. Because very little of the blood runs out of the meat, it is a nice reddish-burgundy color and is never dyed.
All of the animals in all of the farms that blackwing contracts with are grass feed with supplemental soy free, vegetarian, no byproduct diet during bad weather or finishing. They spend their entire lives out to pasture until 6 weeks before processing. They use a very high voltage shock to instantly stop the heart. Blackwing does not sell veal or process animals younger than 2 years of age.
Buy Meat With A Conscious!