US says remote chance of health impact in massive beef recall
WASHINGTON (AFP) — US officials said there was only a "remote" chance of adverse health effects from beef in a massive recall as a probe continued Monday into a meat packing firm accused of multiple health violations.
A top US Department of Agriculture official downplayed the public health risk the USDA revealed Sunday in announcing that a California company had voluntarily recalled about 143 million pounds (65 million kilos) of suspect beef.
The largest meat recall in US history came amid a federal investigation into Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Company's slaughter of cattle which had been abused with electric prods, beaten and forklifted into standing up to pass inspection.
"We think the food supply is safe," said Kenneth Petersen, the assistant administrator for field operations for the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) of the USDA.
"But we think this recall is important and we think it's important for parents to know that the schools are taking action to put those products on hold," he said in a CNN television interview.
Richard Raymond, undersecretary for food safety, said officials believed "there is a remote probability that the recalled beef products could cause adverse health effects if consumed."
USDA officials said that much of the recalled meat probably already has been eaten.
Federal authorities said they did not have solid evidence of illnesses linked to the meat.
The recall covers beef produced since February 2006 and distributed nationwide to wholesalers.
Hallmark/Westland sold at least 37 million pounds of meat to the national school lunch program and other nutrition programs, including for the poor and the elderly, and for American Indians, run by the USDA during that time, according to officials.
Schools in Washington state and California have removed beef from their lunch menus because they suspect it came from Hallmark/Westland.
Consumers Union urged USDA to disclose the retail outlets that have sold the recalled beef.
Jean Halloran, director of food policy initiatives at the nonprofit consumers group. said: "Consumers have no way of knowing whether the store from which they've purchased their meat was involved in a recall."
The Chino, California-based Hallmark/Westland halted operations in early February after the disclosure last month of a video secretly taped by the Humane Society of the United States in October and November.
The video includes scenes of a Hallmark/Westland plant worker poking an electric prod into the eye of a fallen cow and a worker running a forklift's wheels over a cow's face and legs.
"I've never heard a cow scream like that before," the voice of the unidentified narrator says.
Officials said that an ongoing investigation has shown that the plant violated USDA rules regarding the treatment of so-called "downer" cattle -- animals that arrive at the slaughter plant but cannot stand up because of an illness or injury.
Following the discovery of mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), in the US in 2003, the USDA forbade the slaughter of downer cattle to reduce the chance of BSE entering the human food chain.
Those rules were relaxed slightly last year to allow USDA veterinarians to determine on a case-by-case basis the reason why a downer cow could not stand. Ill or diseased animals must be condemned under USDA regulations.
Petersen said that Hallmark/Westland had failed to alert FSIS that cattle had fallen down after an FSIS inspector had found them healthy for slaughter, a "serious violation of regulations and that's really what led to the recall."
"And because we inspected these animals first and then they went down, that is not at all typical of an animal that would be exhibiting clinical signs. So that's why we think this is the Class II recall, a remote probability," he said.
