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Community Health News Article
On February 18, 2008, The Los Angeles Times, among other news agencies, announced that the United States Department of Agriculture announced the largest beef recall in history that involved 143 million pounds of frozen and raw beef that came from Westland/Hallmark Meat Company in Chino, California. The manager and employees of the slaughterhouse could be facing several years in prison if they are found guilty of animal cruelty. The USDA placed a hold on all Westland products on January 30th that were sold to federal outlets that included the National School Lunch Program, the Food Assistance Program on Indian Reservations, and the Emergency Food Assistance Program. The recall list included all beef with the Westland King Meat Co. label, the Hallmark Meat Packing label, and the Regal label. (Landsberg & Kim, 2008).
The reason the recall was set into place was due to the release of a video that was shot over a 6-week period in October 2007 by an undercover investigator who wore a concealed camera. The investigator for the Humane Society documented workers at the slaughterhouse, “moving downed cows with forklifts, drowning cows by forcing water down their noses with water hoses, and shocking and prodding cattle that were too weak to walk.” (Landsberg & Kim, 2008). The video also showed a manager using a paddle to hit a fallen cow in the eye and on the face to get the cow back on the slaughter line. There was also video evidence of four downer cows being slaughtered for food. In 2004, the USDA required all cattle to be able to walk to slaughter after being inspected by the USDA veterinarians. Downer cows are not be used for slaughter because they may be suffering from bovine spongiform encephalopathy, which is more familiarly known as mad cow disease. If a cow does go down before slaughter, a reinspection by the USDA veterinarian must be conducted in order for the cow to be used as food. The Chino slaughterhouse failed to...