Whistleblower says Bush regime is hiding mad cow outbreaks

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Tue, 12 Apr 2005 15:18:38 -0400

Whistleblower says Bush regime is hiding mad cow outbreaks

 

 

http://www.unknownnews.org/0504120407madcow.html

 

 

Whistleblower says Bush regime is hiding mad cow outbreaks

by Duncan Thorne,

 

 

The Edmonton Journal

 

April 7, 2005

 

EDMONTON -- A former American government packing plant veterinarian

says the United States government is hiding cases of mad cow disease.

 

Dr. Lester Friedlander said Wednesday that colleagues with the United

States Department of Agriculture have told him of cases that the USDA

has chosen not to announce.

 

Friedlander, who has been invited to speak to Parliament's agriculture

committee next week on proposed changes to Canadian inspection

legislation, refused to give details. He said the USDA employees are

close to retirement and risk losing their pensions.

 

He has previously spoken out, however, about a Texas cow that had mad

cow symptoms and went untested to a rendering plant after a USDA

veterinarian condemned it at a packing plant in San Angelo.

 

There have been U.S. news reports that just three cows processed by

the plant were tested for bovine spongiform encephalopathy over two

years. The plant, Lone Star Beef, processes older dairy cows

considered at higher risk of carrying BSE.

 

Friedlander said it's not credible that the USDA has found just one

BSE case and only in a cow that entered the United States from Alberta

rather than being raised in the U.S.

 

" You've found four cases (including a cow from Alberta discovered in

Washington state with the disease) out of 12 million cattle and the

United States has found none out of 120 million, " Friedlander said in

an interview during a speaking visit to Edmonton.

 

He said production practices in the two countries are similar enough

that the USDA should be finding more BSE cases.

 

Friedlander was in charge of meat inspectors at the largest U.S.

culled-cow packing plant, in Pennsylvania, until 1995. He lost his job

for, in his words, " doing too good a job. "

 

He has since become a public speaker on food and animal safety issues.

He was in Edmonton as a guest of the Edmonton Friends of the North

Environmental Society.

 

The USDA's record looks worse than the Canadian Food Inspection

Agency's but Canada needs a new " consumer " agency to oversee packing

plant inspections, he added. He said the USDA and CFIA both suffer

from having too much influence from politicians eager to please the

food industry. His proposed consumer agency would be a government body

but would have more safeguards against political influence.

 

Marc Richard, speaking from Ottawa for the CFIA, said the agency

enforces rules set by Parliament and does its job well.

 

He said it reports to Agriculture Minister Andrew Mitchell and a

replacement government agency would have to do the same.

 

Friedlander also warned against intensive livestock operations, such

as cattle feedlots and large hog operations. He said they are ideal

breeding grounds for bacteria and disease, and authorities have tended

to react slowly when there's an outbreak.

 

Delayed reaction to avian flu last year at a British Columbia poultry

operation led to a large and costly outbreak, he said.

 

John Feddes, an agricultural engineer at the University of Alberta,

said the province's confined feeding operations are generally run

well, under stringent rules. Large hog operations, Feddes said, are clean.

 

" Just because they're large doesn't mean they're going to be out of

control. "

 

Dr. Gerald Ollis, Alberta Agriculture's chief veterinarian, said

confined feeding ops tend to have well-educated people in charge and

are big enough that they can have vets visit more often than at

smaller farms.

 

Ollis added that his experience of CFIA inspections is that they are

done well.

 

He was not aware of reports of limited BSE testing at the Texas

packing plant, but said the USDA is concentrating its tests at

high-throughput operations.

 

Originally published and full text at

http://www.canada.com/edmonton/edmontonjournal/news/cityplus/story.html?id=ac626\

610-a801-4e81-9ba1-71bf85d17c26

 

 

When did God become pro-war, pro-rich and only pro-American? -- Jim

Wallis, Author of " God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and

the Left Doesn't Get It "