US: Cattle industry condemns slaughterhouse abuse

However, Bo Reagan, vice president of research for the Colorado-based National Cattleman’s Beef Association, said the incident was not indicative of how most slaughterhouses operated.

“The welfare of our animals – that’s the heart and soul of our operations,” he said.

US Department of Agriculture guidelines mandate that an inspector must review sick or injured animals, called “downer” cattle, before they can be slaughtered, and that the 1958 Humane Slaughter Act sets strict rules for the humane treatment of animals.

“What happened in this case was that there were some animals that were harvested out of compliance,” Mr Reagan said.

The video prompted the recall of 143 million pounds of the company’s beef. Federal regulations call for keeping downed cattle out of the food supply because they may pose a higher risk of contamination from E.coli, salmonella or mad cow disease since they typically wallow in faeces and their immune systems are often weak.

But Wayne Pacelle, president and chief executive of the Humane Society, said his organisation chose to investigate the Westland/Hallmark plant at random and said he was sceptical of the cattle industry’s practices.

“I think this is the typical rhetorical and typical false assurances that we hear from the industry after glaring problems have been exposed,” he said.

He said it is impossible to say whether the treatment depicted on the video was isolated, but stopped short of calling it widespread.

Agriculture chiefs estimate that about 37 million pounds of the recalled beef went to school programmes, but they believe most of the meat had probably already been eaten.

“We don’t know how much product is out there right now. We don’t think there is a health hazard, but we do have to take this action,” said Dr Dick Raymond, the US Department of Agriculture’s undersecretary for food safety.

About 150 school districts have stopped using the beef. Two fast-food chains, Jack-In-the-Box and In-N-Out, said they would not use beef from Westland/Hallmark.

Rosa DeLauro, chairwoman of the House of Representatives’ Agriculture, Food and Drug Administration Appropriations Sub-committee, which allocates funding for the USDA, has demanded answers about the Westland/Hallmark case before a March 5 budgetary review hearing.

Ms DeLaura condemned the videotaped mistreatment of cattle and said she was concerned it “demonstrates just how far our food safety system has collapsed”.

Westland/Hallmark is a major supplier of beef for the National School Lunch Programme, and Ms DeLaura called for an independent investigation into the government’s ability to ensure the safety of meat served at US schools.

The congresswoman also asked what the USDA was doing to address alleged staff shortages among slaughterhouse inspectors – an issue also raised by other food safety experts and watchdog groups yesterday.

USDA spokesman Keith Williams denied there was a shortage of inspectors. He said the agency had evidence that Westland/Hallmark did not routinely contact its vet when cattle became unable to walk after passing inspection, breaking health regulations.

A phone message left for Westland/Hallmark president Steve Mendell was not immediately returned.

Two former Westland/Hallmark employees have been charged in connection with the videoed incident.

Five felony counts of animal cruelty and three misdemeanours were filed against a pen manager and three misdemeanour counts – illegal movement of a non-ambulatory animal – were filed against an employee who worked under the manager. Both were sacked.

No charges have been filed against the company, but an investigation by federal authorities is continuing.