March 18, 2004 Scripps Howard News Service by JON ORTIZ

The mere whiff of tougher, decentralized mad cow testing is drawing fire from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and some in the beef industry. Both caution that such a move would be a potentially disastrous overreaction to the lone U.S. case detected in December.

State Sen. Mike Machado, D-Linden, and Sen. Jackie Speier, D-Hillsborough, are among the legislators who believe a stricter state testing program would help sell the state's beef to foreign countries concerned about mad cow disease.

More than 50 countries have banned U.S. beef since a mad cow case was found in Washington state, lopping $ 3.86 billion in annual export sales from the $ 40 billion U.S. beef industry, according to the U.S. Meat Export Federation.

The USDA, which conducts limited testing, doesn't allow anyone else to test for the fatal brain-wasting disease in cattle, but a Kansas slaughterhouse is challenging that policy with plans to check its cattle with the same techniques used in Europe and Japan.

The USDA has so far refused the request and cautioned that testing without its approval - or even selling test kits - is against federal law.

However, officials in Japan, the country's largest beef export market, are quietly encouraging wider testing. Japan spent $ 1.4 billion on U.S. beef last year - 10 percent of foreign beef sales - until it closed its ports to the meat in December after a Holstein was found with mad cow disease.

"We support a California movement to test more cattle," said Tabashi Sato, spokesman for the Japanese Embassy in Washington. "The Japanese government and consumers would be quite pleased if California addressed our concerns."

Japan wants U.S. beef imports to meet the same standards it has for Japanese beef: tests of all cattle at slaughter and incineration of all "at-risk materials" - the brain, spinal cord and intestines that are known to harbor the agent that triggers the disease.

The Bush administration argues that these measures are unnecessary because most U.S. beef cows are slaughtered before they are 30 months old, the age at which most scientists think the disease becomes contagious.

Currently, USDA policy limits definitive mad cow testing to its Iowa facility, where the process can take up to two weeks. The California plan would use rapid tests that return results within a few hours. Any positive results would be sent to Iowa for confirmation.

"California could become a pilot program for the nation," said Machado spokeswoman Jody Fuji. "The senator is really interested in looking into rapid testing and what it could cost to do it here."

The plan envisioned by Machado would expand mad cow testing at facilities such as the California Animal Health and Food Safety Laboratory in Davis. The laboratory already uses rapid test techniques to detect Chronic Wasting Disease, an illness similar to mad cow that affects deer and elk.

About 2,200 of the state's 1 million slaughtered cattle were tested for mad cow each of the last two years, according to the state Department of Food and Agriculture.

"We feel additional testing is necessary to demonstrate to the world that our firewalls and safeguards against BSE are effective," said Ben Higgins, spokesman for the California Cattlemen's Association.

Some ranchers, however, worry about the details.

"I would hope the Legislature wouldn't make cattlemen criminals by setting up a system that we can't logistically comply with," said Stan Van Vleck, an agriculture industry lobbyist who owns a 5,000-acre ranch in south Sacramento County. "Who's going to absorb the cost? What about quality control? If this isn't done right, it will hurt consumers, the industry, everybody."

The USDA says that's why it has qualms about delegating authority to test for mad cow. False positives could needlessly scare consumers and wreck cattle futures, it says.

"Resuming trade with Japan and other countries is a top priority," said USDA spokesman Ed Loyd. "We're in the process of reviewing our entire (testing) program. We'll looking at certified rapid tests and more labs. But this has to be done right."

Last year, about 20,000 of the 35 million cattle slaughtered in the United States were tested for mad cow disease, also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy or BSE. The USDA plans to test at least 40,000 cattle this year.

Cattle contract BSE by eating feed fortified with the remains of infected cattle. The U.S. government banned feeding cows ruminant animal feed in 1997.

Humans can develop a rare version of the illness, called new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, by eating beef tainted with the protein that triggers the disease.

California might learn from the experience of Creekstone Farms Premium Beef LLC, an Arkansas City, Kan., meatpacker that wants to test every cow it processes, a plan that it hopes will reopen Japan to its beef.

"We agree that the food in this country is safe, but this is something that the overseas customer is asking for," said Creekstone Chief Operating Officer Bill Fielding. "We want to meet that demand."

Creekstone presented the USDA with its plan in late February and even started construction of a laboratory that Fielding says will meet or exceed federal standards.

The USDA told Creekstone that it would not approve the testing and that testing without government approval could be a criminal offense. A 1913 federal law gives the department's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service sweeping powers, including review and approval of techniques used to treat animal diseases. Anyone acting without federal sanction could face a $ 1,000 fine and up to a year in jail per incident.

By Thursday, the department's tone had softened.

"As far as Creekstone goes, we're meeting with them and discussing (their plan)," said the USDA's Loyd. "We have to approve any tests and labs."

Fielding said he is bewildered at the USDA position.

"We just want to respond to the customer. It's not right that the government can prevent that from happening," he said. "The USDA should work to help us, not stop us. This should be a free market business decision."