The USDA issued a recall over the weekend for 143 million pounds of beef produced over the last two years by a California company which, the USDA has recently learned had not been properly reporting "downer" cows--those too sick to stand. These cows have entered the food supply [1] (links to a summary, see the USDA's recall notice here [2]) and may carry E. Coli or mad-cow disease (BSE)

The USDA’s largest-ever recall is now under way — "approximately 143,383,823 pounds" (give or take a few ounces?) of raw and frozen beef products from the disgraced Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Co. in Chino, California. That’s almost half the amount of beef and poultry recalled since 1994 in the United States

What's more, the use of downer cows (see more [3] on the topic from Rick) by the company was reported [4] three weeks ago by the Washington Post after the Humane Society provided video evidence of downer cows being lifted with forklifts and sprayed with water in the nose for the same reason.

This is just the latest in a series of steadily increasing E. Coli recalls that have reached record levels in recent years. What's more, just because meat is recalled by the USDA does not mean [5] it actually comes off store shelves:

The effectiveness of USDA-managed recalls has been the subject of much criticism in recent years. For example, in 2004 the Government Accountability Office (GAO) submitted a report to Congress (PDF) pointing out numerous weaknesses in recall practices of the USDA (and the FDA). Among the problems detailed by the GAO are a failure to know how quickly and completely the affected companies were carrying out the recalls, and an inability to verify that recall requests had fully permeated the distribution chain.

Basically, this is going to keep happening untill we realize that our food safety is very poorly protected. Conservatives and their contempt for government have systematically undermined consumer safety for the benefit of large agribusineses. For more read Rick [6] and this guy [7].