Three South Lake Tahoe restaurants were ordered the day after Christmas to recall their ground beef because of the potential for mad-cow disease contamination, the El Dorado County Public Health Department reported Tuesday.
"This is a very minimal health risk, but we felt it was our responsibility to let the public know," said Virginia Huber, spokeswoman for the health department.
Federal law prohibits releasing the names of the restaurants without the owner's consent. Each declined to go public despite pleas from the county.
"I think it is unfortunate and disturbing that federal law prohibits revealing this information and requires it to be voluntary disclosure," Huber said.
The businesses were notified of the recall Dec. 26 after a cow slaughtered in Washington state tested positive for mad cow disease, or Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy. It can cause a fatal brain disease in humans if infected beef is consumed.
The risk is "very minimal," Huber said, but if contaminated meat was consumed the effect may not be known for years.
The three restaurants combined received 216 pounds of ground beef between Dec. 15 and Dec. 19. Huber said that by law she could not identify the supplier or the type of restaurants affected.
Huber did confirm that one company supplied all three businesses and that some of the meat had been consumed, but she did not know how many pounds.
The Nevada Department of Agriculture on Tuesday confirmed some beef subject to the recall had been delivered in the state. A spokesman said he did not know if any of the meat ended up at Stateline.
"The feds have privacy on this," said department spokesman Ed Foster. "There was some meat in Nevada going to some smaller mom and pop operations and they have been notified."
Foster said the state veterinarian has participated in conference calls with the U.S. Department of Agriculture each morning since tainted beef was detected in Washington state. He and scientists from the University of Nevada at Reno are in the process of visiting ranches that raise the 80,000 head of cattle to share information about the disease.
An agreement signed in September 2002 allows California to be more specific than Nevada about the counties in which meat is distributed. A beef recall caused by a positive test for E. coli bacteria spurred California to request the agreement with the federal government, said Jim Waddell, chief of the food and drug branch of the California Department of Health Services.
El Dorado County is one of at least nine counties to have received meat involved in the recall. The state did not notify the county about beef until late Friday.
County health officials spent time Monday and Tuesday trying to convince the restaurants to go public. Then they worked out how the information regarding the disease would be released.
"We didn't have any ongoing risk," Huber said. "We didn't have any grocery stores involved and we already knew where all the product was so we didn't feel there was an urgent need."
Waddell said risk of contamination has been minuscule all along.
"This is a precautionary measure," Waddell said. "There was one animal found to be positive. The portions most at risk (of being infected with the disease) are the brain, spinal cord and intestine, and all (of that) is removed at the time of slaughter."
Waddell said he did not know if states other than California have an agreement with the U.S. Department of Agriculture that allows a limited release of information regarding contaminated products. The state says the information helps ensure the recalled product has been removed from sale.
"Prior to the time we did enter into (agreement) we were not able to share any information on any recall," Waddell said. "Even when we had illness associated with it."
Contact Gregory Crofton at gcrofton@tahoedailytribune.com or (530) 542-8045.
