More Deadly Lies - Did USDA
Even Test 20,000 Cattle?
USDA Refuses To Release Mad Cow Test Records
By Steve Mitchell
United Press International
12-24-03
WASHINGTON (UPI) -- Although the United States Department of
Agriculture insisted the U.S. beef supply is safe Tuesday after
announcing the first documented case of mad cow disease in the United
States, the agency for six months repeatedly refused to release its
tests for mad cow to United Press International.
The USDA claims to have tested approximately 20,000 cows for the
disease in 2002 and 2003, but has been unable to provide any
documentation in support of this to UPI, which first requested the
information in July.
In addition, former USDA veterinarians tell UPI they have long
suspected the disease was in U.S herds and there are probably
additional infected animals.
USDA Secretary Ann M. Veneman announced late Tuesday during a hastily
scheduled news briefing that a cow slaughtered Dec. 9 on a farm in
Mabton, Wash., had tested positive for mad cow disease. The farm has
been quarantined but the meat from the animal may have already passed
into the human food supply.
The slaughtered meat was sent for processing to Midway Meats in
Washington and the USDA is currently trying to trace if the meat went
for human consumption, Veneman said.
The fear is mad cow disease can infect humans and cause a
brain-wasting condition known as variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
that is always fatal. More than 100 people contracted this disease in
the United Kingdom after a widespread outbreak of mad cow disease in
that country in the 1980s.
An outbreak of mad cow disease in the United States has the potential
to dwarf the situation in the United Kingdom because the American beef
industry is far larger and U.S. beef is exported to countries all over
the globe.
"We're talking about billions of people" around the world who
potentially have been exposed to U.S. beef, Lester Friedlander, a
former USDA veterinarian who has been insisting mad cow is present in
American herds for years, told UPI.
The USDA insisted the case is probably isolated and the US beef supply
is safe. "I plan to serve beef for my Christmas dinner," Veneman said,
"and we remain confident in the safety of our food supply."
Responded Friedlander: "She might as well kiss her (behind) goodbye,
then."
Veneman went on to say she had confidence in the USDA surveillance
system for detecting mad cow and protecting the public, noting the
agency has tested more than 20,000 cattle for the disease this year.
This represents only a small percentage of the millions of cows in the
U.S. herd, however, and experts say current procedures are unlikely to
detect mad cow.
The Washington cow was tested because it was a so-called downer cow --
a cow unable to stand on its own -- which is a sign of mad cow
disease. However, the United States sees approximately 200,000 of
these per year or about 10 times as many animals are tested for the
disease.
USDA officials told UPI as recently as Dec. 17 the agency still is
searching for documentation of its mad cow testing results from 2002
and 2003.
UPI initially requested the documents on July 10, and the agency sent
a response letter dated July 24, saying it had launched a search for
any documents pertaining to mad cow tests from 2002 and 2003.
"If any documents exist, they will be forwarded," USDA official
Michael Marquis wrote in the letter.
Despite this and a 30-day limit under the Freedom of Information Act
on responding to such a request, the USDA never sent any corresponding
documents. The agency's FOI office also did not return several calls
from UPI placed over a series of months.
Finally, UPI threatened legal action in early December if the agency
did not respond.
In a Dec. 17 letter to UPI from USDA Freedom of Information Act Office
Andrea E. Fowler, the agency wrote: "Your request has been forwarded
to the (Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service) for processing and
to search for the record responsive to your earlier request."
To date, the USDA has not said if any records exist or if they will be
sent to UPI.
"It's always concerned me that they haven't used the same rapid
testing technique that's used in Europe," where mad cow has been
detected in several additional countries outside of the United
Kingdom, Michael Schwochert, a retired USDA veterinarian in Ft.
Morgan, Colo., told UPI.
"It was almost like they didn't want to find mad cow disease,"
Schwochert said.
He noted he had been informed that approximately six months ago a cow
displaying symptoms suggestive of mad cow disease showed up at the
X-cel slaughtering plant in Ft. Morgan.
Once cows are unloaded off the truck they are required to be inspected
by USDA veterinarians. However, the cow was spotted by plant employees
before USDA officials saw it and "it went back out on a special truck
and they called the guys in the office and said don't say anything
about this," Schwochert said.
Veneman said the Washington case "does not pose any kind of
significant risk to the human food chain."
Friedlander called that assessment, aptly enough, "B.S." Referring to
the USDA's failure to provide their testing documentation to UPI, he
said, "The government doesn't have records to substantiate their
testing so how do they know whether this is an isolated case." The
agency also cannot provide any assurance that this animal did not get
processed for human consumption, he said.
Schwochert agreed with that, saying the USDA's sparse testing means
they cannot say with any confidence whether there are additional cases
or not.
Both Schwochert and Friedlander said the report of a mad cow case
would devastate the U.S. beef industry.
"It scares the hell out of me what it's going to do to the cattle
industry," Schwochert said. "This could be catastrophic."
Only hours after Veneman's announcement, Japan -- the biggest importer
of U.S. beef -- and South Korea both banned the importation of
American meat.
The American Meat Institute, a trade group in Arlington, Va.,
representing the U.S. meat and poultry industry, maintained the U.S.
beef supply is safe for human consumption.
"First and foremost, the U.S. beef supply is safe," AMI spokesman Dan
Murphy told UPI. "We think its safe for U.S. consumers to eat."
This is because infectious prions, thought to be the causative agent
of mad cow and vCJD, are not found in muscle tissue that comprises
hamburgers and steaks, he said. They are generally located in brain
and spinal cord tissue. (ED NOTE: See also 'Mad Cow' Proteins Form In
Muscle As Well As Brain
<http://www.rense.com/general21/madcowproteins.htm>http://www.rense.com/general21/madcowproteins.htm)
However, recent studies have suggested prions may occur, albeit in
smaller numbers, in muscle tissue, and bits of brain and spinal cord
tissue have been detected in hamburger meat.
Other protective measures have also been put in place that should
protect consumers, Murphy said.
Mad cow disease is thought to be spread by feeding infected cow tissue
back to cattle -- a practice that was common in the United Kingdom and
is thought to have contributed to their widespread outbreak. The
practice has been banned in the United States by the Food and Drug
Administration since 1997, which should help ensure this is "an
isolated case," Murphy said.
A report from the General Accounting Office issued just last year,
however, found some ranchers in the United States still violate the
feed ban and do feed cow tissue to cattle.
The GAO concluded: "While (mad cow disease) has not been found in the
United States, federal actions do not sufficiently ensure that all
(mad cow)-infected animals or products are kept out or that if (mad
cow) were found, it would be detected promptly and not spread to other
cattle through animal feed or enter the human food supply."
http://finance.myway.com/ht/nw/bus/20031224/hlm_bus-n24380346.html
Mad Cow Set to Hit Restaurant Stocks
Analysts expected a short-term dip in restaurant stocks that are
heavily dependent on beef, such as McDonald's and Wendy's, and smaller
steakhouse chains like Outback Steakhouse Inc and Rare Hospitality
International Inc. , operator of LongHorn Steakhouse restaurants.
http://apnews.myway.com//article/20031224/D7VKOGJ01.html
Eight Nations Block U.S. Beef Imports
Dec 24, 7:36 AM (ET)
By JOSEPH COLEMAN
TOKYO (AP) - The mad cow disease scare in the United States spread
quickly to Asia and Europe, where eight nations including top U.S.
market Japan blocked the import of American beef products after a cow
in Washington state tested positive for the illness.
Japan, the world's top importer of U.S. beef, imposed an indefinite
ban and planned to recall certain meat products already on the market,
while South Korea halted customs inspections of U.S. beef and
suspended sales for meat already on supermarket shelves.
Hong Kong, Australia, Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia
followed suit. Later Wednesday, Russia also issued a temporary ban,
Agriculture Minister Alexei Gordeyev said.
In Brussels, the European Union, which already bans much U.S. beef
because of fears about growth hormones, said it would not take any
additional measures against U.S. beef.
Antonia Mochan, a spokeswoman at the EU's executive Commission, said
the United States was already classified as an "at-risk country" as
part of the sweeping EU measures adopted following Britain's mad cow
crisis, which began in the late 1980s and spread across western
Europe. Under those restrictions, imports of specific risk products,
such as brains, are banned.
The moves came after the U.S. government announced that a Holstein cow
on a Washington state farm tested positive for mad cow disease,
marking the disease's first suspected appearance in the United States.
British experts said the United States must seek out the help of
countries that have experience dealing with the disease and must take
swift action to restore consumer confidence in its beef stocks.
"The key here is to restore confidence quickly, not to allow it to
drag out," Sean Ricard, former chief economist of Britain's National
Farmers' Union, told British Broadcasting Corp. radio. "What I hope
America will do is take rapid action, perhaps slaughter the herd that
animal came from."
Ricard predicted a short-term slide in the price of beef in the United
States.
U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman said the risk to human health
in this U.S. case was "extremely low." Parts of the cow that would be
infected - the brain, the spinal cord and the lower part of the small
intestine - were removed before the animal went to a meat processing
plant.
The immediate reaction also reflected the widespread consumption of
U.S. beef in Asia, where American eating habits have gained tremendous
popularity in recent decades, as evidenced by the proliferation of
fast-food outlets.
Australia - a major beef exporter that stands to gain economically
from a bans on U.S. imports - placed a temporary hold on American
beef, Agriculture Minister Warren Truss said Wednesday.
In Canada, where a single case of the disease was found in May,
federal officials said late Tuesday that imports wouldn't be banned
unless the suspected case was confirmed.
Japan's Agriculture Ministry said its ban applied to beef and beef
products and took effect immediately.
"We must ban beef imports from the United States for the time being,"
said Health Minister Chikara Sakaguchi. "We must recall products that
include so-called 'dangerous parts,'" such as brains and spinal cords.
Japan is the largest overseas market in value terms for U.S. beef.
Exports totaled $842 million in 2002, accounting for 32 percent of the
market for U.S. exports, according to the U.S. Meat Export Federation.
South Korea is No. 2 in value, with $610 million. Mexico, the top
importer of U.S. beef in volume terms, was third in value in 2002, a
federation official in Seoul said.
Japanese authorities have been especially leery about mad cow disease
since the nation's herds suffered the first recorded outbreak of the
disease in Asia in September 2001, causing meat consumption to plunge.
Consumption, however, has since rebounded.
While fresh imports to Japan have been banned, there was no widespread
rush to pull American beef from supermarket shelves. A spokesman at
Ito-Yokado, Japan's largest supermarket chain, said the retailer had
faith in the safety of the beef already on its shelves and would sell
its stocks.
The Aeon chain, however, said it was going to pull American beef from
its shelves.
Ito-Yokado imports its U.S. beef from herds in the midwest, far from
where the infected Holstein was discovered in Washington state, the
spokesman said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The United States supplied 46.5 percent of Japan's beef imports in
2002, or 226,524 tons, second only to Australia. There was speculation
in Japan that the ban would cause major bottlenecks for restaurants as
they scrambled to find other suppliers.
The mad cow scare already took a toll on restaurant stocks in Japan.
Shares of Yoshinoya, a "gyu-don" meat and rice restaurant chain where
99 percent of the beef is American, plunged 9.4 percent, and stocks of
McDonald's Japan, which said it exclusively serves Australian beef,
lost 3.1 percent.
In Hong Kong, the territory's government said in a statement that the
temporary ban is a precaution, saying "there is no evidence to suggest
that U.S. beef on the market is unsafe."
In Singapore, the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority said that if the
mad cow disease case is confirmed in the United States, the country
will not import American beef again until Washington certifies that it
has been free of the disease for six years.
Taiwan said U.S. beef could face a seven-year export ban.
Mad cow disease, known also as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, eats
holes in the brains of cattle. It sprang up in Britain in 1986 and
spread through countries in Europe and Asia, prompting massive
destruction of herds and decimating the European beef industry.
People can contract a form of mad cow disease if they eat infected
beef or nerve tissue, and possibly through blood transfusions. The
human form of mad cow disease so far has killed 143 people in Britain
and 10 elsewhere, none in the United States.
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| User: "R. Foreman" |
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| Title: Re: The Mad Cow lie |
29 Dec 2003 11:11:53 AM |
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Spat the Words
More Deadly Lies - Did USDA
Even Test 20,000 Cattle?
How could we, all the diseased animals are in Canada!
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: The Mad Cow lie |
31 Dec 2003 06:46:44 AM |
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On Mon, 29 Dec 2003 17:11:53 GMT, "R. Foreman"
<eidpers@anti-spam.comcast.net> wrote:
DaarkSyde@everywhere.com Spat the Words
More Deadly Lies - Did USDA
Even Test 20,000 Cattle?
How could we, all the diseased animals are in Canada!
Poisened by feed from your inbred country.
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| User: "Saint Isidore of Seville" |
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| Title: Re: The Mad Cow lie |
31 Dec 2003 12:54:13 PM |
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Moooooo... my brain feels like it's wasting.
I think I'll move to one of the Jupiter moons
for stability and safety.
The Psychedelick Pope
Saint Isidore of Seville
^Ö^ Patron Saint of the Internet ^Ö^
°°^Ö^ °°
http://apple2.org.za/gswv/me/
All I want to do is WOMP WOMP!!!!!
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