Potential Mad Cow Risk Leads To Beef Recall

More than 4,000 pounds of beef were recalled this Wednesday due to the possibility of contaminants in the form of mad cow disease. The possibly infected meat came from a processing facility called Fruitland American Meat in Jackson, Missouri. According to the FSIS, the meat was distributed to stores in New York, New England and Kansas City, Missouri.

Bovine spongiform encephalopathy, more commonly known as mad cow disease, is a neurodegenerative disease that causes a spongy deterioration in the brain and spinal cord of cattle. It is not caused by bacterium or viruses but rather by an abnormal protein called prion.

In addition to causing degeneration in the nervous systems of cattle, prion also deteriorates the nervous system of humans. Humans that eat the brain, spinal cord, or digestive tract of cattle infected with mad cow disease could develop a fatal disease known as variant Creutzfeldt — Jakob disease. As a result, the USDA enforces strict regulations on cattle slaughter to ensure that mad cow disease does not present a threat to American consumers.

Fruitland American Meat’s slaughter logs showed that they did not fully remove the dorsal root ganglia from the slaughtered cattle, a step required by the USDA to prevent the spread of mad cow disease. Dorsal root ganglia are considered SRMs, or Specified Risk Materials, since these tissues may contain the infective agent that causes mad cow disease. The FDA prohibits any trace of SRMs from use as food in order to prevent any human contact with mad cow disease.

A spokesperson from the USDA tells CNN that although the cows were thoroughly inspected prior to their slaughter and showed no sign of mad cow disease, the FSIS has issued a Class II recall on the beef. So far, no infections or illnesses have been reported.

The meat was produced and packaged between September 2013 and April 2014 and was sold to 34 different Whole Foods stores in the North East, mostly in the form of bone-in rib eye roasts.

Jeff Hershberger of the Kansas City, Missouri Health Department tells CNN that they are doing their best to warn establishments of the mad cow disease and to remove the possibly infected meat off their shelves. The USDA reports that “The quartered carcasses were distributed to an FSIS-inspected establishment in Missouri for further processing and distribution, and to a restaurant in Kansas City, MO.”