WASHINGTON — A federal audit of 18 beef slaughterhouses following the nation's largest beef recall found humane handling violations in four of them, including one serious enough for the plant to be temporarily suspended.
The audit by the Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service concluded that a plant was insufficiently stunning animals, failing to make them insensible to pain on the first attempt. That plant has taken corrective actions and its suspension has been lifted, said Agriculture Secretary Edward Schafer. None of the plants was identified.
The audit, which covered slaughterhouses that supply beef to the National School Lunch Program and other federal food assistance programs, was requested by Sen. Herb Kohl, a Wisconsin Democrat who chairs the Senate Appropriations agriculture subcommittee. Schafer provided the results to Kohl in a letter for a hearing on the beef recall Tuesday.
Read the full Associated Press story here.
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