March 4, 2004 Spokesman Review  by Jimmie Presley

Phyllis Fong, inspector general for the USDA, told Congress Wednesday that her office was investigating whether the cow, which department officials consistently described as a ''downer" cow, was actually a healthy animal.

''Currently we are investigating allegations surrounding the actual state of the diseased cow before it went to slaughter," Fong told the House subcommittee on agriculture appropriations. ''So that's a criminal investigation that's open, ongoing, active and it's focused on that issue."

Since December, when the Holstein from a Mabton dairy tested positive for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease, the USDA consistently said that disease was discovered because of the department's effective and aggressive surveillance program.

That program targets cattle that are visibly sick or diseased or that show problems with their central nervous systems that lead to what are commonly called downer cows because they can't stand on their own.

But in early February, an employee of the Moses Lake facility where the cow was slaughtered said its disease was only discovered by chance. Dave Louthan said he slaughtered the cow and it was not a downer.

Louthan also said government officials falsified the report to state the cow was a downer. His comments led to media reports that prompted the investigation, said Austin Chadwick, a spokesman for the USDA inspector general's office.

Last month, the House Committee on Government Reform asked Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman for an investigation, citing reports from Louthan and two others who said the BSE-infected cow was not a downer. One of those was Thomas Ellestad, the co-manager of the Moses Lake facility, who said in an affidavit the cow was tested because the plant has an agreement with the USDA.

The plant hasn't accepted downer cattle since February 2003, Ellestad said.

As part of the criminal investigation, Fong said her office was auditing the USDA to determine what the definition of a downer cow is. It also wants to know what the USDA testing procedures for BSE were before the Mabton case, what they are now and how that system works in the field.

Several House members questioned whether Fong's office could convince the agencies it inspects to change their policies.

In 2000, the inspector general's office made numerous recommendations to the Food Safety and Inspection Service to improve inspection of imported meat, said Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio. Several of those recommendations have not yet been implemented.

''This is completely unacceptable to us," Kaptur said. ''What in the world are you disagreeing over for three years?"

USDA officials admitted that the problem is deep.

''We're recommending that FSIS change their policy, change the way they do things," said Robert Young, assistant inspector general for audit. ''They've done it the same way for years; they don't want to change."

Committee members also questioned why the inspector general's office only planned on 3.6 percent of its resources to be used for food safety in 2004.

''While the level of resources may not appear to be what perhaps some would want it to be, (food safety) is one of our top priorities," Fong told the committee.

The 2004 annual plan was put together before the BSE case, she said.

Kaptur asked Fong to provide dates of when the USDA verified the cow was a downer, when the recall notice went out on more than 10,000 pounds of beef from the Moses Lake facility, how much of that meat was recovered from the recall and what may have gotten into the meat supply.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., pressed Fong on when the investigation will be done. She called it a ''potentially explosive" situation and asked for an estimate in no more than three weeks.

''If it has a high priority within your shop you must have some sense of how long this is going to take," DeLauro said.

Fong replied that her office would move as quickly as possible, but there could be surprises that would prolong the investigation.

''It's very, very hard to predict," Fong said. ''We don't know what we're going to run into."