E. Coli Beef Recall in California 864,000 Pounds

January 18, 2010

A Montebello company is recalling 864,000 pounds of beef products that may be contaminated with E. coli, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said today.

Inspectors from the agency’s Food Safety and Inspection Service found a potential problem while conducting a safety assessment of Huntington Meat Packing Inc. The investigation is continuing.

In the meantime, several products produced between Jan. 5 and 15 are being recalled. And after further review of the company’s records, the same products produced between Feb. 19 and May 15, 2008, are also being recalled.

Pink Slime Burgers Laced with Ammonia and E. Coli

Few who saw the documentary Food Inc. will forget the scene involving Beef Products Inc., a South Dakota company that makes a widely used hamburger filler product.  A Beef Products executive invited the Food Inc. crew to record his company’s inner workings. The man is clearly proud of his company’s product. “We think we can lessen the incidence of E. Coli 0157:H7,” he says.

Scraps of cow flesh, swept up from slaughterhouse floors and pulverized into a kind of paste, are moving through the tubes, subjected to a lashings of ammonium hydroxide to kill bacteria. “This is our finished product,” the executive declares. He then claims that the product ends up in 70 percent of hamburgers served in the U.S. “In five years we’ll be in 100 percent,” he predicts.

Beef Products buys the cheapest, least desirable beef on offer—fatty sweepings from the slaughterhouse floor, which are notoriously rife with pathogens like E. coli 0157 and antibiotic-resistant salmonella. It sends the scraps through a series of machines, grinds them into a paste, separates out the fat, and laces the substance with ammonia to kill pathogens.

The result, known by some in the industry as “pink slime,” is marketed widely to hamburger makers. The product has three selling points, from what I can tell: 1) it’s really, really cheap; 2) unlike conventional ground beef, which routinely carries E. coli, etc, pink slime is sterilized by the addition of ammonia; and 3) it’s so full of ammonia that it will kill pathogens in the ground beef it’s mixed with.


With the U.S.D.A.‘s stamp of approval, the company’s processed beef has become a mainstay in America’s hamburgers. McDonald’s, Burger King and other fast-food giants use it as a component in ground beef, as do grocery chains. The federal school lunch program used an estimated 5.5 million pounds of the processed beef last year alone.

Government and industry records obtained by The New York Times show that in testing for the school lunch program, E. coli and salmonella pathogens have been found dozens of times in Beef Products meat, challenging claims by the company and the U.S.D.A. about the effectiveness of the treatment. Since 2005, E. coli has been found 3 times and salmonella 48 times, including back-to-back incidents in August in which two 27,000-pound batches were found to be contaminated. The meat was caught before reaching lunch-rooms trays.

http://www.grist.org/article/2009-12-31-meat-wagon-ammonia-burger/

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/31/us/31meat.html?_r=2&partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

E. coli-tainted Beef 248,000 Pound Recall

Twenty-one people in 16 states have been infected in recent days with a potentially lethal strain of E. coli bacteria, after consuming beef in restaurants supplied by the same Oklahoma meat company, federal officials said.  The outbreak spurred the company, National Steak and Poultry, to voluntarily recall 248,000 pounds of beef December 24.

Nine of the 21 sickened have been hospitalized, the USDA reported. The department has identified cases in six states -- Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, South Dakota and Washington.

The recall is considered a "class 1" or a "high health risk" by the USDA, which regulates the meat industry, because among the pathogens that can harm human health, E. coli O157:H7 is one of the most lethal. Even for those who survive, there can be long-term health effects.

Part of the problem is that the USDA really does little to regulate the meat industry.

Part of the solution is stop eating beef.

Ground Beef Recalls Since 2007

With the recent recall of 1,039 pounds of hamburger contaminated with E. coli O157:H7, and the additional 546,000 pounds of hamburger recalled, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced today. Hamburger recalls since 2007 have now reached 41,958,504 pounds. And, this is not counting another recall from 2008. Then, Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Co., a Chino, California establishment, voluntarily recalled approximately 143,383,823 pounds of raw and frozen beef products that FSIS had determined to be unfit for human food because the cattle did not receive complete and proper inspection.

Trick or Treat Half Million Pound Ground Beef Recall

A voluntary recall was announced Monday for more than half a million pounds of ground beef because it may be contaminated with bacteria linked to at least two deaths, officials said.

Fairbank Farms of Ashville, New York, said the recall was issued Saturday for approximately 545,699 pounds of ground beef produced between September 14 and September 16 after the meat was "possibly linked" to E. coli O157:H7.

Flaws in Beef Inspection - The Ground Beef Gamble

Stephanie Smith, a children’s dance instructor, thought she had a stomach virus. The aches and cramping were tolerable that first day, and she finished her classes.

Then her diarrhea turned bloody. Her kidneys shut down. Seizures knocked her unconscious. The convulsions grew so relentless that doctors had to put her in a coma for nine weeks. When she emerged, she could no longer walk. The affliction had ravaged her nervous system and left her paralyzed.

Stephanie Smith, 22, was paralyzed after being stricken by E. coli in 2007. Officials traced the E. coli to hamburger her family had eaten. Stephanie Smith was in a coma for nine weeks after being infected with E. coli.

Ms. Smith, 22, was found to have a severe form of food-borne illness caused by E. coli, which Minnesota officials traced to the hamburger that her mother had grilled for their Sunday dinner in early fall 2007.
 
http://www.grist.org/article/warning-this-product-may-cause-sickness-paralysis-and-death
 
A top official at the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service observed that his options were somewhat limited since he had to “look at the entire industry, not just what is best for public health.” Note the fact that his phrasing sets the meat industry’s needs at odds with ours—the two can’t be reconciled in his eyes. What does that say about the government’s ability to ensure a safe food supply? No matter how you structure it, the industry now appears too big and too powerful to be regulated. What other explanation is there for the fact that the top food safety job at the USDA remains unfilled if not regulatory paralysis—the meat industry seems to have veto power over its regulators and hasn’t found a federal overseer to its liking.

Cargill's Beef Packers Plant Previously Cited Says AP

March 2008 inspection records show that USDA auditors found Beef Packer workers using electric prods to urge uncooperative cattle through a small chute that opened to the slaughterhouse. When three cows would not move, workers stunned the animals into unconsciousness “so that they could be pulled through the restrainer to be shackled, hung, and bled,” the records state.

The risk for pathogenic food poisoning, such as E. coli and Salmonella, increases when cattle are treated in such a way because the animals, when dragged, can pick up the dangerous germs from waste products that end up on their hides and can contaminate the chute and surrounding area, according to experts, said the AP. “All kinds of feces and urine get into those chutes because they typically aren’t cleaned out during the day because too many animals need to get in,” said Lester Friedlander, a former USDA veterinary inspector.

Cargill Meat Solutions appealed the alleged violations and the FSIS rescinded the citations, sending Beef Packers a so-called letter of concern, said the AP. Cargill Meat Solutions is the parent company of Beef Packers.

Salmonella Burger Recipe

Two pounds of contaminated hamburger, allow to sit out at room temperature for 8 hours, just in case.

Hand form into four half pound patties more or less football shaped. Don't wash your hands first.

Cook on real charcoal grill to just past rare, there is no point cooking them well done since heat does not kill the bacteria.

Serve on fresh buns with Immodium Mayo and slices of raw onion and ripe tomato.

Cargill Salmonella Infected Beef Recall 825,769 Pounds

Back in January Peter Kreitler blogged:

Quoting from a Cargill advertisement I am astounded by the hubris of the copy writers and the company who state in bold letters:

“WE ARE BRINGING RANCH QUALITY BEEF TO GROCERY STORES.”

Then in smaller type:“Supermarkets know that shoppers will judge the quality of an entire store with what they see in the fresh meat department. So savvy grocery chains have turned to Cargill’s branded beef programs to provide their fresh meat departments with products that bring back customers. This is how Cargill works with customers. – collaborate – create – succeed.”

If this is in fact how shoppers judge grocery stores then everybody in California and surrounding states will be on a hunger strike for a while.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced yesterday that a beef packing facility in Fresno, Calif., is recalling 825,769 pounds of ground beef products because they may be contaminated with an antibiotic- resistant form of the Salmonella bacteria. The recalled ground beef products produced by Beef Packers, Inc., "may be linked to an outbreak of salmonellosis" in Colorado. The company is recalling the ground beef it sent to Colorado, Arizona, Utah and sold in California, according to a USDA announcement.

Beef Packers Inc. is owned by Cargill Inc.

The USDA says this strain "is resistant to many commonly prescribed drugs, which can increase the risk of hospitalization or possible treatment failure in infected individuals," the USDA said. "The most common manifestations of salmonellosis are diarrhea, abdominal cramps, and fever within eight to 72 hours."

Possible treatment failure = death?

By the way, the USDA does not have the authority to impose recalls, recalls are all voluntary.

Salmonella Burgers - Round 2 - Second Outbreak

August 3, 2009

GROUND BEEF WARNING: Colorado state health officials, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and several other state health departments are investigating an outbreak of Salmonella Newport infections that are resistant to several commonly used antibiotics. Experts from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment Friday urged Coloradans to avoid ground beef or to cook it carefully to prevent foodborne illness. To date, cases of illness have been identified in nine states. The majority of cases have been reported in Colorado. Preliminary evidence from the multi-state investigation strongly suggests that ground beef is the source of the outbreak, although further investigation is ongoing. Twenty-one illnesses have been reported in Colorado in the following counties: Arapahoe (three), Broomfield (three), Denver (three), Douglas (one), Elbert (one), Garfield (one), Jefferson (four), Mesa (one), Pueblo (one) and Weld (three). For more information about food safety, call the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s Consumer Protection Division at 303-692-3620.

Bacon as a Weapon of Mass Destruction

The crisis of factory farming becomes its own solution through the use of industrially produced bacon. We know our industrial food system is killing the planet and killing us with heart disease, diabetes and cancer, but how can we resist when it tastes oh-so-good?

We know this food is killing us slowly with diseases like diabetes, heart disease and cancer. But we cannot stop, because we are addicts, and the food industry is the pusher. Even if we could opt out completely (which is almost impossible), it is still our land being ravaged, our water and air being poisoned, our dollars subsidizing the destruction, our public health at risk from bacterial and viral plagues.

Changing our perilous food system means making choices — not to shop for a greener planet, but to collectively dismantle factory farming, giant food corporations and the political system that allows them to exist. It’s a big order, but it’s the only option left on the menu.