Health Law

Wierd recall of the day: cow tongues contaminated with . . . tonsils?

By Drew Falkenstein

No it's not a "foodpoisoning" issue in the classic sense of the word, but it still involves food, it still involves food that was manufactured according to specs, and it still involves a resulting risk, I guess, to the consuming public.  The USDA's food safety and inspection service announced today that:

North American Bison Co-Op, a New Rockford, N.D., establishment is recalling approximately 25,000 pounds of whole beef heads containing tongues that may not have had the tonsils completely removed, which is not compliant with regulations that require the removal of tonsils from cattle of all ages, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced today.

In all seriousness though, this recall does involve a serious public safety risk.  Tonsils are considered a specified risk material (SRM) and must be removed from cattle of all ages in accordance with FSIS regulations. SRMs are tissues that are known to contain the infective agent in cattle infected with Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE)--mad cow disease--as well as materials that are closely associated with these potentially infective tissues. Therefore, FSIS prohibits SRMs from use as human food to minimize potential human exposure to the BSE agent.

Nor is this the first tonsil-related recall to occur due to fears of potential mad cow illnesses. 

Full post as published by Food Poison Blog on April 05, 2010 (boomark / email).