The audit by the Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service concluded that a plant was insufficiently stunning animals, failing to make them insensible to pain on the first attempt. That plant has taken corrective actions and its suspension has been lifted, said Agriculture Secretary Edward Schafer. None of the plants was identified.

The audit, which covered slaughterhouses that supply beef to the National School Lunch Program and other federal food assistance programs, was requested by Sen. Herb Kohl, a Wisconsin Democrat who chairs the Senate Appropriations agriculture subcommittee. Schafer provided the results to Kohl in a letter for a hearing on the beef recall Tuesday.

Earlier this year, the department recalled 143 million pounds of meat from Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. in Chino, Calif., following an undercover video by the Humane Society of the United States that showed slaughterhouse workers abusing "downer" cattle — those too sick or injured to stand.

Source: Associated Press