On February 17, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced a recall of 143 million pounds of beef produced by California’s Hallmark/Westland plant - a major supplier of beef for USDA’s School Lunch Program. The massive scope of the recall argued for emergency measures to ensure that no more of the potentially dangerous beef was consumed. Instead, USDA officials followed the usual bureaucratic process, one that has dragged on for days, and potentially will take weeks to complete. 

For years, USDA rejected calls for it to treat recalls as emergencies. The agency continues to insist that it’s routine procedures are adequate to handle extraordinary events like the current recall, the largest in U.S. history. As a result, much of the meat covered by recalls is consumed before it is traced to its final destination. Slow recalls benefit industry by reducing the amount of product a plant must pay to have destroyed. But, for consumers, slow recalls are a disaster waiting to happen.

If consumers haven’t already fallen ill by the time a recall is announced, industry and USDA imply that the meat is safe. But, some diseases transmitted by cows, such as “mad cow disease,” can take years to develop. Thus, slow recalls leave the public vulnerable to a future epidemic of deadly disease. Moreover, they make the food supply an appealing target for terrorists.

Treating food recalls as emergencies is vital to protecting consumers from disabling and deadly illnesses. The time has come for Congress to demand a recall of USDA’s bureaucratic response to food threats.

[The author, DAP analyst Linda Lewis, formerly worked for the Food Safety and Inspection Service, and was interviewed by Medill News Service for a story on the recall.)