Minnesota schools pull tons of ground beef

Officials say beef from Westland Meat had been sent to distribution centers in Brooklyn Park, Maplewood, Newport and St. Michael, and to the St. Paul School District.

The USDA sent 20 tons of beef from the company to St. Paul last fall. Students, staff and other members of the community may have eaten as much as eight and a half tons of the beef since then, according to district spokesman Howie Padilla.

"There's no evidence that any of the meat we have has been tainted at this point," said Padilla. "Much of it is frozen. Some of it has already been put into stuff like chili, and things of that nature. So we're obviously not using that. We're putting that on hold, too."

Cows who are too sick to walk are thought to be at higher risk of E. coli, salmonella and mad cow disease. They are banned from the food supply.

District officials say there have been no reports of illness linked to the beef. Experts, though, fear mad cow can be passed on in meat and symptoms can take decades to appear.

Other Twin Cities area school districts, including Anoka-Hennepin, Minneapolis and South Washington County, also pulled beef from their menus until further notice.

The Humane Society of the United States released a video on Wednesday that shows workers at the Hallmark Meat Packing Co. slaughterhouse in Chino, Calif., kicking, shocking, prodding and dragging sick cows into the plant, which supplies Westland.

Meat from so-called "downer" cattle who are too sick or injured to walk is not supposed to enter the human food supply because of the risk that they could pass diseases to people. The USDA suspended the company from food and nutrition programs on Wednesday in light of the allegations.

Minnesota Education Commissioner Alice Seagren sent a letter to districts across the state Thursday to make sure they were aware that the USDA had put a hold on the beef pending the USDA's investigation.

"This is an extra precaution," she wrote. "We want you to know there has been a hold on meat. And I would think that districts will take that precaution."

The Humane Society welcomed Minnesota's move.

"We urge state officials to follow the examples already set by Minnesota, Oregon and Utah to order state school districts to stop using beef delivered from this company," the society's president and CEO, Wayne Pacelle, said in a letter to state school officials in the 36 states that received the beef.

(The Associated Press contributed to this report)

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