May 1, 2004 Consumer Reports 

Mad cow disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) is one of a family of brain-wasting diseases that affect many mammals, including humans. It is invariably fatal. The human form, called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, is extremely rare. In Britain, however, there have been 103 confirmed deaths from the disease, apparently resulting from eating the meat of infected cows.

For years the USDA had only a small testing program, stating that "the risk to public health is extremely low." But the Washington case that was announced in December 2003, discovered just seven months after another case was detected in Canada, made clear that the disease is here. Widespread testing is now essential to ensure that U.S. beef is free of infection.

After a case was discovered in Japan, the Japanese government instituted a program of testing every animal that is slaughtered - some 1.2 million animals in 2003. There and in Europe, the tests have not detected any cases in animals younger than 20 months. We therefore urge the Agriculture Department to require testing of all animals that are 20 months or older.

The USDA's current testing program is pitifully small. Last year the department tested only about 20,000 cows. In contrast, in 2002 France tested 3.2 million animals, about 55 percent of those slaughtered; and Germany tested 3 million, about 70 percent of those slaughtered. The USDA has recently suggested that it will up its total to 40,000 - still only one-tenth of 1 percent of all cattle slaughtered. That miniscule percentage is not anywhere near sufficient.

The USDA has recently taken another step that it maintains offers consumers enhanced protection: banning from the food supply all "downer" cows - animals too sick or injured to walk to slaughter. But healthy-looking, walking animals have tested positive for mad cow disease.

In February 2004 a panel of internationally recognized experts recommended that the USDA test not only all downer cows but also a random sample of cows over 30 months old that look healthy. Consumers are in favor of testing all animals for the disease, even if it results in higher beef prices (see Up Front, for the results of a recent CU poll).

The use of "quick tests," which are the norm in Europe and Japan, could also improve beef safety. Those tests cost less than one-tenth that of the current USDA method and can provide results in just under four hours; it takes as long as two weeks to get results from the testing procedure now used by the USDA.

The U.S. cattle industry asserts that the beef supply is safe - but we need much more than wishful thinking. We need a competent testing program that demonstrates the absence of infected cattle from our food supply. A "don't look, don't find" approach is not appropriate for such a serious public-health concern.

We have the opportunity to avoid the mistakes of the British government, which minimized and failed to act on the mad cow problem for a decade, only to have to deal with a disaster in the end. The USDA should immediately approve quick tests and begin testing millions of animals.