Missouri firm recalls beef for 'remote' mad cow risk

A Missouri company has recalled more than 4,000 pounds of fresh beef sent to restaurants and the Whole Foods supermarket chain because they might contain spinal nerves and other tissue that can carry mad cow disease.

The risk of transmitting mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, is "remote," however, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The recall was made by Fruitland American Meat of Jackson, Mo., and the recalled meats were produced and packaged in September and April. That amount of beef is quite small, the equivalent to four or five steers.

Inspectors were most concerned about bone-in rib-eye roasts. The USDA requires companies to remove certain types of brain and nerve tissue from meat because they can contain the proteins that cause mad cow disease. In humans, the disease can cause variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, or variant CJD, which is degenerative and fatal.

The bone-in rib-eye roasts were distributed to a restaurant in New York City and a Whole Foods distribution center in Connecticut that serves stores in New England. Quartered carcasses were distributed to a restaurant in Kansas City, Mo. All products would have been processed into smaller cuts with no identifying consumer packaging, according to the USDA. Inspectors discovered the problem when reviewing company slaughter logs.

"There is no indication that any of the cattle slaughtered displayed any signs" of mad cow disease, according to the USDA announcement. There have been no reports of suspicious symptoms or bad reactions.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, health officials have confirmed more than 220 cases of variant CJD around the world since 1996, mostly in the United Kingdom and France. The USA has had four reported cases, including a patient who recently died in Texas. Doctors made the diagnosis with an autopsy, the CDC reported last week.But the U.S. patients who died had traveled overseas, and no death in the U.S. has been tied to infected beef from this country.

Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease takes its name from Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, which is not caused by eating meat from cattle infected with mad cow disease. Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease is a spontaneously occurring degenerative brain disease that strikes about one in 1 million humans, generally over age 60. Each year in the United States, about 300 people fall ill with the disease.

Contributing: Elizabeth Weise