Local schools, food pantries affected by beef recall
School districts in Indiana are taking steps to keep recalled beef from school lunches. In Michigan one district threw out ten tons of hamburger meat.
It’s all part of the largest beef recall in U.S. history, and it’s affecting schools in Indiana.
Meatloaf was on the menu Sunday at Anita Collins house. She thawed one of the three pounds of Westland Slaughterhouse beef she received from a food pantry at St. Vincent DePaul.
But after watching the Humane Society’s undercover video of abused cattle at Westland she decided it wasn’t worth the risk.
“I’m going to throw it away. Because I didn’t buy it at a grocery store or anything, so I’m just going to get rid of it because I’m scared to use it,” Collins told Eyewitness News.
She’s not the only one holding the beef. The Indiana Department of Education issued orders January 31st to put more than 900 pounds aside.
Thirty-seven Indiana school districts including St. John Lutheran, and St. Simon the Apostle in Indianapolis, Greenwood, Greenfield and Southwestern Consolidated were all shipped frozen meat. That meat came from the same slaughterhouse under investigation by the USDA.
“It’s bad. It’s pathetic. That’s not the kind of thing that we want to see,” said State Superintendent of Instruction Dr. Suellen Reed.
Downed cattle too sick to walk and too sick for the nation’s food supply were forced onto their feet by abuse.
Dr. Reed says schools have taken immediate action but can’t be sure how much had already been served up.
“They put those aside and what we’re going to do is keep those aside. They will not be presented to students or anyone else,” vowed the superintendent.
The recall is for 143 million pounds of frozen beef dating back to February 1, 2006. The USDA suspended operations at the slaughterhouse which supplies meat to the federal school lunch program and some fast food chains.
Federal regulators say downed cattle pose a higher risk of contamination from E.coli, salmonella or mad cow disease.
Dr. Kenneth Petersen is speaking out on behalf of the Department of Agriculture. “This is a Class II recall,” Petersen explained. “That’s what we refer to as having a remote probability of causing any adverse illness. Here we have a remote chance of people getting sick,” he said.
Dr. Reed offered state assurances. “To my knowledge no one has become ill,” she said from her Statehouse office Monday.
But the captured video has left the nation and beef industry unsettled.
Eyewitness News left a message with St. Vincent DePaul. Its pantry was closed Monday.
Superintendent Reed says the USDA will provide another meat source for schools at no additional cost. She says parents would have received notification if there were confirmed cases of contamination.
Critics say the recall raises concerns about government inspections, and some are renewing the call for tighter regulations.
“Food safety laws today are a hundred years old,” said Caroline Smith DeWaal, Center for Science in the Public Interest. “They’re clearly not doing the job consumers expect.”
The pen manager at Westland/Hallmark caught on tape now faces five felony counts of animal cruelty. Another employee faces three misdemeanor counts. Both workers were fired.
The president of the meat company called the video horrifying and says a fulltime USDA veterinarian has been overseeing their work for years.
Explore posts in the same categories: Health, Education, Local News