("Happy Cow" Land, Ca.) Beef Packer Recalls 825,769 lbs. of Contaminated Beef GO Beef! Back to the Plant.

Company Recalls 825,769 Lbs Beef For Salmonella -USDA

August 06, 2009: 11:01 AM ET


(Updates to add background on Salmonella)

By Bill Tomson

Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Thursday that a beef packing facility in Fresno, Calif., is recalling 825,769 pounds of ground beef products because they may be contaminated with an antibiotic- resistant form of the Salmonella bacteria.

The recalled ground beef products produced by Beef Packers, Inc., "may be linked to an outbreak of salmonellosis" in Colorado. The company is recalling the ground beef it sent to Colorado, Arizona, Utah and sold in California, according to a USDA announcement.

Beef Packers Inc. is owned by Cargill Inc.

It is the Newport strain of Salmonella that was linked to production at the California facility, the USDA said.

This strain "is resistant to many commonly prescribed drugs, which can increase the risk of hospitalization or possible treatment failure in infected individuals," the USDA said. "The most common manifestations of salmonellosis are diarrhea, abdominal cramps, and fever within eight to 72 hours."

This is the second USDA announcement in about two weeks of a ground beef recall tied to the outbreak of an antibiotic-resistant strain of Salmonella. On July 23 the USDA released a notice of a 466,236-pound recall by the King Soopers grocery store due to contamination of Salmonella Typhimurium DT104.

King Soopers is a division of The Kroger Co. (KR).

There are 15 illnesses so far linked to the King Soopers recall, six of which resulted in hospitalization, according to Shaun Cosgrove, an epidemiologist for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.

All of those cases were discovered in Colorado although King Soopers - a Colorado-based store - recalled beef sent to several states.

Illnesses in Colorado were also behind the Beef Packers Inc. recall, the USDA said Thursday, but did not say how many.

A recently released study by the USDA's Agriculture Research Service estimated total Salmonella prevalence in ground beef in U.S. packing plants at 4.2%, substantially more than the USDA's food safety agency estimate of 2.4%. The ARS study showed a 0.6% prevalence of antibiotic-resistant Salmonella, such as the Newport and Typhimurium strains.

-By Bill Tomson, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-646-0088; bill.tomson@dowjones.com

(Les Aldrich contributed to this story)

(END) Dow Jones Newswires
08-06-09 1101ET