Fears around contaminated beef grow
Posted Sep 25, 2012 2:14 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Amidst fears of contaminated meat, the United States has halted exports of some Alberta beef.
Ground beef from XL Foods is now being turned back after inspectors caught repeated contaminated shipments at the border.
They’ve also expanded the Canadian recall to stores in California, Michigan, Nebraska, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin.
660News is also learning more about a review at Leduc’s XL Foods that led to a massive voluntary recall of more than 300 products.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has completed their look at the food safety controls and found a number of issues with regards to their preventative control plan.
The in-depth review focused on the plans preventative control measures, food-safety policies and procedures, laboratory methodology and equipment and quality systems.
At this point, spokesman Richard Arsenault tells 660News it appears not all of the bacteria was killed while animals were on the slaughter floor.
“There was a day at the end of August where there was an unusually high level of animals that had e-coli that went in there,” he says. “And the decontamination thing did what it was supposed to do but it doesn’t seem to have done everything that it was intended to do.”
According to the CFIA, e-coli in slaughter facilities is common and plants are supposed to have adequate measures in place to measure detection rates.
“We’re dealing with bacteria that you can’t see, you can’t smell, you can’t touch and the testing program that companies use is very robust, is very good,” he says. “But clearly we have evidence here that it won’t prevent every incident of getting out.”
Arsenault says the slaughter floor isn’t 100%, all of the time.
Overall, the agency found the company was unable to demonstrate through it’s documentation that it regularly reviewed or made updates to it’s facility.
XL Foods has since developed a response plan.
The CFIA has accepted the plan and adds it will monitor the corrective measures taken at the plant.
The number of e-coli cases since the recall was launched more than a week ago has grown in Alberta.
There are now eight new cases, four in Edmonton, one in Central Alberta and three in Calgary.
Alberta Health Services adds none of the illnesses have yet to be linked to contaminated beef from XL Foods.
