Dean Slams Bush on Mad Cow Crisis

Dean Faults Bush Over Mad Cow Precautions
By REUTERS

Published: December 28, 2003

ANKENY, Iowa (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean on
Sunday accused President Bush of failing America's cattle producers by not
having adequate plans in place to cope with the discovery of mad cow
disease.

``You can't blame the president because a cow came down with BSE (bovine
spongiform encephalopathy), but you can blame the Bush administration for a
lot of what's going to happen to beef farmers over the next couple of
weeks,'' Dean said.

``We didn't adopt the procedures that Great Britain did after their terrible
time, which ruined many cattle farmers.''

Dean, who is a physician, said the Bush administration had killed a proposal
passed by the Senate which would have prohibited meatpackers in the U.S.
from slaughtering so-called downer animals like the Washington state dairy
cow that has become America's first confirmed case of mad cow disease.

``What's going to happen to the beef industry in the short term could have
been prevented if the administration had thought more about this
possibility,'' Dean said in a campaign speech in Ankeny, Iowa -- a leading
farm state.

Dean said there should be a system in place to track the movement of cattle
so investigators, when confronted with a case of mad cow disease, can check
if meat from the animal had entered the food supply.

``I haven't verified this so this isn't part of my official platform yet ...
I am told that testing every single cow (that is slaughtered) costs an
average of three cents extra per pound of meat,'' Dean said. ``If that's
true, we ought to do it.''

One of Dean's rivals for the Democratic nomination, Richard Gephardt, also
faulted Bush on Sunday, saying the discovery of mad cow disease could be
devastating for farmers and rural towns.

``George Bush refuses to fund important country-of-origin labeling
provisions for meat and has ignored the need for resources at the FDA and
USDA to inspect the agricultural products coming across our borders,''
Gephardt said in a statement.

``We need a president who is committed to the right of American consumers to
know where their meat is coming from and not to the huge special interests
that are fighting to keep safety regulations out of our food.''

Another democratic presidential candidate, John Kerry, called for federal
aid for farmers who suffer financial losses from the mad cow scare.

U.S. officials on Sunday expanded the recall of more than 10,000 pounds of
beef, sparked by the mad cow crisis, to eight mostly western states and
Guam.