Injury Law Blog : Florida Injury Lawyer & Attorney : LaBovick & LaBovick Law Firm: Serving West Palm, Boynton, North Palm, West Palm Beach, Jupiter

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Cargill Beef issued a massive recall on November 3, 2007 for more than 1 million pounds of ground beef that is suspected to be contaminated with E. coli bacteria. This is the second voluntary recall of beef in less than a month. The earlier Cargill recall was issued October 6, 2007 for 844,812 pounds of frozen ground beef patties because they may be contaminated with E. coli O157:H7.  This recall included products that were produced on Aug. 9, 10, 15, 16 and 17, 2007, and were distributed nationwide. Each package bears the establishment number “Est. 924A” inside the USDA mark of inspection. The products include:

Products distributed at the retail and subject to recall are:

• 6-pound boxes of “American Chef's Selection Angus Beef Patties 18-1/3 Pound Patties.” Each package bears a case code of “7703100” and various package codes of Best If Used By dates of “02/05/08,” “02/06/08,” “02/12/08,” and “02/13/08.”

A few prevention and safety measures include:

1.  cooking any ground beef to an internal temperature of 160 degrees F., or until the meat is no longer pink and the juices run clear.
2.  Avoid contaminating other foods with any E. coli bacteria that may be present in meat.
3. Wash Hands, utensils and cutting boards after they touch raw meat.
4. Place cooked meat on a clean platter, not one that was used to hold raw meat.

Consumers with food safety questions also can “Ask Karen,” the FSIS virtual representative available 24 hours a day at ASKKaren.gov. The toll-free USDA Meat and Poultry Hotline 1-888-MPHotline (1-888-674-6854) is available in English and Spanish and can be reached from 10 a.m to 4 p.m. (Eastern Time) Monday through Friday. Recorded food safety messages are available 24 hours a day.

The Ecoli Lawyer at the Marler Blog, provides excellent commentary on the history of Cargill Food Recalls dating back to the early 90's. Amazing they have been having problems this long. One would think that with new technology, the company would master how to prevent E. coli outbreaks. If you look at the great historical chart, the Marler Blog gives in their post on Cargill, getting reacquainted with the Enemy, it is hard to avoid the massive growth and expansion efforts of the Cargill company. My question to Cargill is "While you were growing and acquiring new companies were you looking into best practices of preventing food-borne illnesses?"

Blogger Jane Genova includes an excellent Blog Post entitled Cargill, ConAgra et al. Need to Follow Oprah Crisis Management 101on measures Cargill should take in dealing with the PR Crisis nightmare. Oprah is my hero and role model. No one is a master PR like Oprah. Jane's list is one that all executives and PR people should keep and hold onto, in case a PR Crisis should arise on their watch.

• Acknowledge the situation is serious
• Be visible where the trouble is or could be
• Follow up sincerity with concrete action. Be a responsive human being
• Be part of the reform effort. This is not about committees or delegation. The message is: This will not happen again, at least not on our watch.
• Be totally accessible. Use technology such as personal email addresses, blogs, and live media conferences

According to the Regional Beef President, John Keating, no illnesses have been reported. Now that is what makes me wonder if the public is fully aware of the meat recalls. There have been so many recalls over the past three months. Every time you look on the news, you hear of  another recall  that many have become desensitized by them. The ten states that are included in the recall are: Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia.