Mad-cow beef 4 times amount earlier said

The amount of beef potentially contaminated by the nation's first mad-cow case was nearly four times higher than the federal government initially reported, The U.S. Department of Agriculture has said.

When the USDA launched the recall of affected meat Dec. 23, officials put the total at 10,400 pounds, or 5.2 tons, a figure they repeated for nearly two months. But the actual amount was 38,000 pounds, or 19 tons, the agency now acknowledges.

The total swelled because meat from the infected cow was mingled with meat from many other animals when it was ground into hamburger.

Officials at the two Oregon plants that processed and distributed the meat said they knew within a day exactly how much had been sold and where it had gone.

Consumer advocates say the delay in reporting the true amount shows how difficult it is for the public to get timely information about contaminated meat and points up flaws in a recall process they say favors the meat industry over public health.

Where did meat go?

Meat linked to December's case of mad-cow disease in Yakima County wound up in about 580 grocery stores, restaurants and markets, 270 of them in Washington. The rest were scattered across Oregon, California, Idaho, Nevada and Montana.

"I find it frightening," said Elisa Odabashian, senior policy analyst for Consumers Union. "USDA should be telling people how much tainted product is out there and where it is."

USDA spokesman Steven Cohen said the agency didn't update the total because it was more concerned with tracking down the beef. "What's important is how quickly you can remove it, not the final poundage."

And he stressed that the chance anyone who ate the meat will contract the human form of the fatal disease is slight, because the most infectious tissues, including the brain and spinal cord, were removed when the cow was slaughtered.

USDA estimates about half of the meat — 21,000 pounds — was returned. The rest was either eaten or discarded by consumers. The agency never revealed the grocery stores or restaurants that sold the beef, because that information is considered proprietary. Several grocery chains voluntarily alerted customers, though few identified which specific stores received the contaminated meat. Restaurants generally provided no warning other than a notice posted inside....