Beef Imports From Brazil Suspended Over Safety Concerns

The U.S. suspended fresh beef imports from Brazil on Thursday after finding a much higher number of shipments with safety issues than beef from other countries.

The USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service rejected nearly 2 million pounds of Brazilian beef imports since March, 11 percent of the total, according to Bloomberg. Shipments rejected from other countries made up around 1 percent of the total shipments.

Some of the rejected shipments reportedly included meat with blood clots and lymph nodes, which are unhealthy to eat.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture said the ban will be in place until corrective actions are taken that satisfy inspectors.

According to The Wall Street Journal, last year, the U.S. imported 37,000 metric tons of beef from Brazil, which is a miniscule amount of the 11.7 million metric tons of beef consumed in the U.S. overall in 2016. The U.S. is the world’s largest beef producer.

The move comes at a time when investigators in Brazil said as recently as March that food inspectors had been caught accepting bribes, and dozens were arrested, The New York Times reported. Brazil had previously banned five major producers from exporting beef to the U.S., but U.S. officials did not feel that those actions went far enough.

The U.S. has been inspecting 100 percent of beef imports from Brazil since the inspectors were arrested in March. A number of other countries including China banned beef imports from Brazil in March when the reports about bribed inspectors first broke.

Brazil said it will try to get the ban reversed so that Brazilian beef can again enter the U.S., Bloomberg reported.

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