Feds drop ball on mad-cow precautions

[Guest guest]

Feds drop ball on mad-cow precautions

January 1, 2004 Denver Post By Diane Carman

 

http://www.organicconsumers.org/madcow/drop1104.cfm

 

My friends in Oregon were on a meat-eating frenzy when we arrived

last week. Recent converts to the Atkins Diet, they were subsisting

nearly exclusively on livestock products.

 

Three meals a day of bacon, eggs, sausage, beef, poultry, fried pork

rinds and endless dairy products were served as conversations

revolved around two subjects: Mad cow and what I'd give for a baked

potato right now.

 

 

They are not unusual. It seems the whole country has gone carnivore.

 

 

And many of the same folks who cling to the belief that a meat-heavy

diet will make them thin are just as blithely putting their faith in

government officials who dismiss mad cow as merely a case of media

hysteria.

 

 

But John Stauber begs to differ.

 

 

Stauber is an investigative writer, executive director of the Center

for Media and Democracy and co-author of the 1997 book " Mad Cow USA:

Could the Nightmare Happen Here? " He also is a harsh critic of

policies that he believes guaranteed an influx of mad cow-tainted

meat into the U.S. food supply.

 

 

The U.S. Department of Agriculture knew at least as far back as 1991

what needed to be done to prevent mad cow in the U.S. and didn't do

it, he said. " Our book is really a case study in how a deadly

emerging disease was managed as a PR problem rather than a serious

global threat. "

 

 

The reason measures were not taken to protect the food supply, he

said, was that the agribusiness lobbyists pressured Congress not to

impose the necessary regulations.

 

 

So the same folks who pooh-poohed the reforms of the accounting

industry that might have prevented the corporate ripoffs that began

in the late '90s, decided the precautions imposed in Britain after

the mad-cow outbreak there were too much for the shareholders in the

American meat industry to bear.

 

 

The so-called " fire wall " protecting American consumers from

contaminated meat is " a farce, " Stauber said. " The obfuscation and

spin coming from the USDA is amazing. "

 

 

Last July, the House defeated a bill that would have prohibited the

slaughter of " downed animals. " It was defeated because it would cost

farmers money. This was despite testimony that a Canadian cow found

to have mad cow disease in May was a " downer " and clearly

demonstrated the risk of allowing sick animals to enter the food

supply.

 

 

Before that, back in 1997, the USDA chose not to ban from the market

animal feeds containing animal byproducts, a known cause of the

spread of mad cow disease. Instead, it required that all such animal

feeds containing animal byproducts be labeled as not appropriate for

ruminants - cattle, sheep, etc.

 

 

" All it was was a labeling regulation, " Stauber said, " it's not a

ban. And even at that it is widely ignored and poorly enforced. "

 

 

Beyond that, Stauber said, blood products were exempt from the

regulations, and the use of animal formulas containing blood plasma

from slaughterhouses is common on dairy operations where farmers

wean calves early to maximize the amount of milk available for

sale. " An ocean of blood is being fed to farm animals, " he said.

 

 

While little is known about its diet, the animal found to be

infected with mad cow last month was a downer from a dairy herd in

Washington state.

 

 

Further, the suggestion that this is a unique, isolated case of mad

cow from Canada is preposterous, Stauber said. " The FDA said back in

1997 that by the time we saw one case of mad cow in the U.S. - even

if there were an effective feed ban in place, which there isn't -

over the next 11 years because of the invisible latency period we

could expect to see 299,000 more cases, " he said.

 

 

John Stencel, president of the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union, a

network of family farmers and ranchers, shares Stauber's concern. He

said animal byproducts are likely still found in livestock feed on

Colorado farms despite the link with mad cow. " There are people we

find who don't even know " of the danger, he said. " They may be using

some of that feed just because it's available. "

 

 

Stencel, who worked at the USDA in the 1990s, said he saw how

budgets for hiring livestock inspectors were cut year after year and

how enforcement of existing regulations was compromised.

 

 

" Many people said we'd never see mad cow in the U.S., but I knew

that day would come, " he said.

 

 

And it's not over yet.

 

 

" Down the road, we're going to see people dying of mad cow " in the

human form, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, Stauber said. " That's when

consumer outrage is going to really kick in " and meaningful

regulation might finally come.

 

 

Until then, Stauber said, we can expect to see the USDA focus its

energy on damage control, spin and " smearing its critics. "

 

 

And in the meantime, that means consumers are on their own.

 

 

So I'll be the one eating the potatoes.

 

 

Diane Carman's column appears Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. E-mail:

dcarman.