Meat Industry INSIGHTS Newsletter

971010 USDA Probes Trio of Tainted Meat Reports

October 2, 1997

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Agriculture Department has asked federal prosecutors to assist in the probe of tainted meat sold by Hudson Foods Inc that prompted the nation's biggest beef recall, USDA sources said Wednesday.

The expansion of the Hudson investigation comes as the USDA is investigating contamination of a batch of ground beef produced by Beef America Co. plant, and a complaint from South Korea that it found the same E.coli bacteria in a U.S. beef shipment.

USDA officials declined to provide details on any of the three cases, saying only that the agency was continuing to gather information.

"We have an ongoing investigation and we have auditors looking into it," said a spokeswoman for the USDA's Office of Inspector General, refusing to comment further on Hudson.

But other USDA sources said that the inspector general's office had asked federal prosecutors to help investigate possible criminal violations by the Hudson plant or officials. "There is a lot going on right now with the investigation," one source said.

A spokesman for Hudson was not immediately available for comment.

In August Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman forced Hudson to recall an eventual 25 million pounds of hamburger produced at the company's state-of-the-art plant in Nebraska after several Colorado consumers became ill. Hudson has since agreed to sell the plant to Tyson Foods Inc.

Investigators have not yet determined whether the potentially deadly E.coli 0157:H7 strain entered the meat at a slaughterhouse that handled the carcass or at the Hudson processing plant.

Jacque Knight, a spokeswoman for the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service, said two agency compliance officers were at the suspected Beef America plant processing plant in Norfolk, Nebraska, and were checking records and paperwork to determine whether any additional meat might have been infected.

At the USDA's request, Beef America one month ago ordered a recall of about 200 pounds of ground beef shipped from the plant to a Virginia grocery store. No illnesses have been linked to the Beef America meat.

Keith Dehaan, vice president of technical operations at the Omaha, Neb.,-based company, said the government had not asked it to recall additional amounts of beef.

"USDA has not requested a voluntary recall, to our company anyway, today," Dehaan said.

Rumors circulated in U.S. livestock markets Wednesday that a larger recall involving Beef America beef was pending. The rumors were cited as a reason Chicago Mercantile Exchange December cattle prices fell to a 9-month low Wednesday.

A team of USDA investigators was also en route to South Korea to verify that nation's claim that it found the E.coli strain in 18 tons s of imported U.S. frozen beef.

Glickman, who met Korean Ambassador Kum Woo Park late Tuesday, told reporters he was frustrated by South Korea's lack of cooperation in sharing information from its samples of the beef.

U.S. cattlemen have expressed concern at the South Korea claim, suggesting that South Korea is using the issue as a way to slow trade.

The E.coli 0157:H7 strain of bacteria can cause kidney failure and even death.

Cattle carry the E.coli bacteria in their intestines, but the bacteria can be destroyed by thorough cooking of meat at a temperature of 160 degrees Fahrenheit.

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