Fwd: [blackveggies] Calls for Federal Inquiry Over Untested Cow

[Guest guest]

This is the reason to go vegan or all raw.

 

Inez Teemer

Chicago

 

 

Calls for Federal Inquiry Over Untested Cow

By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.

May 6, 2004

New York Times

 

Consumer groups called for a Congressional investigation yesterday

into the death of a cow with symptoms of brain damage at a Texas

slaughterhouse last week.

 

The cow, which staggered and collapsed after passing an initial

visual inspection at Lone Star Beef in San Angelo, Tex., was

condemned as unfit for human consumption and under federal

regulations should have been tested for mad cow disease.

 

Instead, it was sent to a rendering plant to be made into animal

food and byproducts.

 

The Consumers Union, the Center for Food Safety and the Government

Accountability Project said yesterday that they wanted Congress to

look into why the cow was not tested and the possibility that

federal officials ordered that no test be done.

 

Consumer groups have regularly accused the Agriculture Department of

trying to avoid finding more mad cow disease because of the damage

it would do to the beef industry. Former beef industry officials

hold high positions in the department.

 

The department said yesterday that failing to take a sample was a

mistake and that it would investigate. Its inspector general's

office said it would do its own inquiry.

 

The consumer groups were reacting to an article published yesterday

by meatingplace.com, a meat industry Web site. Citing two anonymous

sources, it said it had firsthand knowledge of the events, one in

government and one in industry. The article said a federal inspector

had started to take a brain sample but was ordered not to by the

regional headquarters of the Agriculture Department in Austin, Tex.

 

Ed Loyd, a department spokesman, said he could not comment on the

report.

 

A spokeswoman for the slaughterhouse said yesterday that the federal

inspectors had discussed taking a sample but decided against it. The

spokeswoman, Rosemary Mucklow, executive director of the National

Meat Association, which represents meatpackers, said they did not

explain why or describe a discussion with the Austin office.

 

The federal inspectors instructed the plant to slash the carcass and

paint it with green dye before putting it on the regular 3 p.m.

rendering truck, Ms. Mucklow said.

 

Felicia Nestor, director of food safety at the Government

Accountability Project, which protects federal whistle-blowers, said

she had heard of several recent instances in which inspectors had

been told by regional offices not to bother testing cows with signs

of brain damage. Ms. Nestor said the whistle-blowers did not want to

come forward.

 

Staggering and collapse by a cow can be caused by head injuries,

rabies, agricultural poisons or cancer, but mad cow disease can be

detected only by cutting off the animal's head, taking a sample from

the base of the brain and doing laboratory tests that are not now

performed in slaughterhouses.

 

Ms. Nestor said she had been told that some tests were skipped

because they were inconvenient. In a state like Texas, she said, the

drive to the regional office with samples could be several hundred

miles. But, she noted, other slaughterhouse inspectors have shipped

frozen heads or brains to the U.S.D.A. testing laboratory in Ames,

Iowa.

 

Mr. Loyd said he did not know the shipping procedures.

 

The Food and Drug Administration, which regulates rendering plants,

said Tuesday that it had tracked the slaughterhouse's shipment and

would require that it all be destroyed or made into pig feed. Swine

are thought not to be susceptible to mad cow disease.

 

Lone Star Beef is the country's 18th-largest slaughterhouse and

specializes in older dairy cattle, which are at highest risk of the

disease.

 

According to Steve Mitchell, a United Press International medical

reporter who has collected thousands of 2002 and 2003 slaughterhouse

records under the Freedom of Information Act, Lone Star Beef

slaughtered about 350,000 animals in those years and tested only

three.

 

Mr. Loyd confirmed that but explained that the animals normally

tested were those unable to walk, or " downers. " Lone Star does not

accept downers because it is a supplier to McDonald's, which forbids

them.

 

" The other plant in town had 90 tests, " he said. " They accepted

downers. "