Feb 18, 2008 5:44 pm US/Mountain
Colo. Beef Council: Colo. Beef Is Safe To Eat
California Slaughterhouse Already Under Investigation For Mistreating Cattle
Reporting
Paul Day
DENVER (CBS4) ―
The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Sunday ordered the recall of 143 million pounds of frozen beef from a California slaughterhouse, the subject of an animal-abuse investigation that provided meat to school lunch programs.
Beef is still off the cafeteria menu at all Douglas County schools, according to a spokeswoman, but it's hard to know, because of the holiday, what other school districts are doing.
Beef products that had been sitting in cold storage at the schools will likely be returned to the Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. of Chino, California.
Fred Lombardi with the Colorado Beef Council insists Colorado's beef supply is safe.
"We're very disappointed; we're angry," Lombardi said. "In no way does this represent the way our animals are handled and treated. Period."
The USDA launched an investigation after receiving the video from the nation's largest animal protection organization, the Humane Society of the United States.
"The humane and proper thing would have been to euthanize animals in obvious distress," Wayne Pacelle with the Humane Society said. "But the people involved wanted to squeeze every last dime out of these poor animals."
Some of the beef went to school lunch programs. That's why local school districts acted quickly to take beef off their menus and offer substitutes. The rest of the beef is believed to have been sold to the public and already consumed.
"We do not know the total reach of the problem in the state of Colorado, no one knows that," Lombardi said.
The Humane Society that shot the video says these so called "downer" cattle are 50 times more likely to carry mad cow disease, but no illnesses have been reported. The Colorado Beef Council says multiple safeguards make America's beef supply the safest in the world.
The USDA described the effort as a Category 2 recall. That means the beef is unfit for human consumption, but there's only a remote chance of any health impacts.
Additional ResourcesRead the
official recall release from the USDA.
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