19-million pounds of beef recalled

The federal government Friday ordered the second-largest recall of beef in U.S. history after at least 16 people became ill from eating meat contaminated with a potentially deadly strain of bacteria.

At the request of the Department of Agriculture, ConAgra Beef Co. of Greeley, Colo. recalled almost 19-million pounds of beef, mostly ground meat, that had been shipped over the last three months to 21 states. Florida is not among them.

The move came as a precaution after meat from the company was found to be contaminated with the bacteria Escherichia coli or E. coli O157:H7, and illnesses believed caused by the contamination began to be reported. Small amounts of the bacteria can cause bloody diarrhea. Children and elderly people are vulnerable to kidney failure.

Five patients who fell ill, including four children, required hospitalization. All of the cases confirmed were in Colorado. At least six cases of E. coli-caused illnesses have been reported in California, Michigan, South Dakota, Washington and Wyoming, but none of those cases has been linked to the ConAgra beef.

Consumer advocates applauded the move by USDA to recall the meat, which is second in size only to the withdrawal of 25-million pounds of beef in 1997. But they charged that the size of the recall suggested systemic problems in the nation's food supply.

"USDA has really taken the teeth out of the meat safety program because they seem to be unwilling to close plants that continually violate the government's food safety standards," said Caroline Smith DeWaal, director of food safety at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer advocacy group. "USDA has a history of being a cheerleader of the meat and poultry industry rather than a watchdog."

The meat industry responded that the responsibility for food safety could not be relegated to companies and that consumers must take responsibility for cooking meat properly.

"You can't test your way to food safety," said Janet Riley, a spokeswoman at the American Meat Institute, a trade association representing the meat and poultry industries. Pointing out that slaughtering plants have USDA inspectors continually on site, she said, "The U.S. meat industry is more heavily regulated than any other industry."

USDA regulators said they became aware of a problem in late June when a test of beef at a company that had been supplied by ConAgra came back positive for E. coli. On June 30, regulators asked the company to withdraw meat -- 354,200 pounds -- shipped on May 31.

In early July, however, USDA began hearing about outbreaks of illness in Colorado, which occurred in the last two weeks of June. By July 15, health officials had compared the E. coli found in the sick patients to the E. coli in ConAgra's contaminated beef and found they were the same strain, said Elsa Murano, undersecretary for food safety at USDA.

Officials insisted that most of the meat that was shipped was probably safe, and the American Meat Institute said it was "likely, in fact, that most of this product has already been safely consumed."

Consumer Federation of America food policy expert Carol Tucker Foreman charged that the USDA had become less vigilant in monitoring the meat industry. She said the agency ought to quintuple its 5,000 random tests of the nation's beef and test carcasses for the deadly bacteria.

ConAgra did not return a call for comment.

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