USDA ineffective in protecting consumers from bad food.

The California incident illustrates again the inadequate protection the department and government safety agencies can offer U.S. consumers and the inability to assure humane treatment of food animals.

[News Source]

State, schools seek update on record beef recall. The country's largest beef recall in history Sunday affecting National School Lunch Programs across Idaho, left the State Department of Education on Monday with a basic question: what now? [News Source]

Recalled beef went to 196 schools in state. The U.S. Department of Agriculture will reimburse schools for destroying beef that is part of an unprecedented national recall announced this week, according to a memo sent to Pittsburgh Public Schools. [News Source]

Lawmaker proposes stripping USDA of safety oversight. The USDA's twin mandates of promoting the nation's agriculture and monitoring it for safety are being questioned in the wake of a beef contamination scare that prompted the nation's largest-ever meat recall. [News Source]

Huge meat recall prods further reforms. This week's recall of 143 million pounds of beef represents the confluence of two important trends in US agriculture: the push for more humane treatment of farm animals, and efforts to prevent the spread of disease. [News Source]

Meat recall sparks calls for food-safety changes. Lawmakers and government investigators seized on the largest meat recall in U.S. history to set the table for changes in the nation's food-safety system, especially as it applies to school lunches. [News Source]

Chino meatpacking worker arrested in recall case. Police arrested one of the meatpacking workers charged with animal cruelty in a case involving a Chino slaughterhouse that led to the nation's largest-ever beef recall, authorities said Tuesday. [News Source]

Senators ask probe in big beef recall. Lawmakers turned up the heat on the U.S. Department of Agriculture Tuesday for gaps in animal inspection at a Southern California slaughterhouse that necessitated a recall of 143 million pounds of beef, the largest beef recall in U.S. history. [News Source]

Who will pay for lost beef? The outcry against conditions at a slaughterhouse here grew Tuesday with demands for immediate reimbursement of money spent by schools on the company's beef, the target of the largest such recall in U.S. history. [News Source]

Investigator shares what he saw. The undercover investigator spent six weeks inside the Chino-based Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. last fall, secretly videotaping employees apparently abusing sick and injured cows. [News Source]