Is USDA Deliberately Ignoring More Mad Cows in U.S.?

USDA vet: Texas mad cow breach not unique

By Steve Mitchell United Press International Published 5/4/2004 5:01 PM

WASHINGTON, May 4 (UPI) -- The recent case of a Texas cow that
displayed symptoms consistent with mad cow disease but slipped through the
cracks of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's surveillance plan is not an
isolated incident, an agency veterinarian and a consumer advocate told
United Press International.

The revelation that the cow was not tested has generated alarm
among the public and Congress, and a USDA veterinarian said cows displaying
central nervous system disorders, such as the one in Texas, often are not
tested for mad cow -- even though the department considers these animals the
most likely to be infected with the disease.

"Sometimes Veterinary Services (the USDA branch responsible for
picking up brains for mad cow testing) won't even show up," the
veterinarian, who requested anonymity, told UPI. "If you tell them the cow
is under 30 months (old), they won't bother with it."

The USDA recently announced an expanded mad cow surveillance
plan aimed at testing an unspecified number of cows over 30 months old. The
agency's position is cows under 30 months are unlikely to test positive,
even if infected, because the disease can take several years to incubate.
Yet, more than 20 cows under this age have tested positive worldwide,
including one as young as 20 months in the United Kingdom.
Felicia Nestor, senior policy adviser to the Government
Accountability Project in Washington, a group that works with federal
whistleblowers, told UPI she is looking into claims from USDA inspectors
there may be other suspicious animals that have gone unreported.
"From the evidence we have so far, we know (the Texas case) is
not an isolated incident," Nestor said.

USDA spokesman Ed Loyd told UPI the agency's procedure is to
test any and all cows exhibiting central nervous system disorders for mad
cow disease.

Asked whether cows showing such symptoms were sometimes not
tested, Loyd responded: "What I'm saying is that that's not the procedure.
If there's a specific instance where such things are occurring, we should
know about it ... so we can take the appropriate action."

If the Texas cow was infected, it would represent the second
case of mad cow disease detected in U.S. herds in five months. The first and
only confirmed case among U.S. cattle occurred in Washington state last
December.

Because the Texas animal's brain tissue was not retained for
testing, it will never be known with any certainty whether the cow had mad
cow disease or was suffering from some other condition, such as poisoning or
rabies.

In this case, a USDA veterinarian condemned the cow on April 27
at Lone Star Beef in San Angelo, Texas, because it had signs of a central
nervous system disorder. The veterinarian apparently failed to abide by USDA
regulations, however, and did not withhold brain samples for mad cow
testing. The USDA is investigating why proper protocol was not followed but
so far has released few details about the situation.

An official statement from Ron DeHaven, administrator of USDA's
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, and Barbara Masters, acting
administrator of the agency's Food Safety and Inspection Service, offered no
explanation of why protocol was breached.

"Standard procedures call for animals condemned due to possible
CNS disorder to be kept until (Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service)
officials can collect samples for testing," the statement said. "However,
this did not occur in this case."

Although the cow's meat did not make it into the human food
supply, the carcass was sent to a rendering plant, which could still entail
risks for spreading mad cow disease among U.S. herds and possibly to people,
consumer groups say. The concern is that humans can contract a fatal,
incurable brain disorder called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease from
eating meat infected with the mad cow pathogen.

"The USDA should be investigated," Michael Hansen, senior
research associate with Consumers Union in Yonkers, N.Y., told UPI.
"Somebody needs to get to the bottom of this story. Maybe there's some kind
of innocent explanation for this, but it does not engender confidence in the
agency if an animal exhibiting neurological signs consistent with the
disease is not even tested."

The system breakdown has caught the attention of at least one
member of Congress. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, ranking member on the Senate
Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, called the USDA's failure
to test the animal "inexcusable."

Harkin, one of the most vocal critics of the USDA in Congress,
said the incident "calls into question the credibility of USDA's recently
announced testing program."

Beverly Boyd, a spokeswoman with the Texas Department of
Agriculture, said "industry sources" who saw the cow told her it more likely
was suffering from an injury and not CNS disease symptoms.
"Animals are injured all the time at packing houses," Boyd said.
"This is just one of the many instances that occur every day."
Still, the only conclusive way to rule out mad cow in animals
with suspected CNS symptoms is to conduct a test.

Patty Lovera of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen in
Washington, said the incident "confirms questions we've been asking since
January about who looks at these animals if they go to rendering. The answer
right now is no one, which is not comforting."

DeHaven and Masters wrote, "The Food and Drug Administration's
feed ban prohibits rendered products from this or any other cow to be fed to
other ruminants."

Hansen disputed that statement. Although the FDA proposed
strengthening feed ban measures after the mad cow case last December, to
date those improvements have not gone into effect, he said.
This means, for example, blood from the Texas cow is still
permitted to go into calf milk replacer, Hansen said. In addition, its brain
and spinal cord -- the most infectious parts if the animal had mad cow --
can be added to chicken feed, he said. This poses a risk because chicken
litter waste, which can contain some remnants of chicken feed, can be
scooped up and incorporated into cattle feed.

"If this animal were positive, yes, there is still concern,"
Hansen said.

FDA issued a statement late Tuesday saying its investigation
into the incident found the animal in question had been rendered into meat
and bone meal, which is used as livestock feed. FDA said the material is
being held by the rendering firm and the agency has banned the use of it in
poultry feed. However, the material will be permitted to be used in pig feed
because the agency says pigs are not susceptible to mad cow disease.
To prevent the Texas situation from happening again, DeHaven and
Masters said the USDA "is providing comprehensive training" on mad cow
collection protocols to agency employees to "help ensure that clear
communications occurs regarding collecting samples."

Nestor said, however, some agency inspectors involved with mad
cow surveillance have told her they are not receiving any training. These
inspectors would be responsible for holding an animal like the Texas cow for
testing, Nestor said.

"If they didn't spot the signs, the cow would go right on in to
the slaughterhouse," she said.
--
Steve Mitchell is UPI's Medical Correspondent. E-mail
sciencemail@upi.com
Copyright © 2001-2004 United Press International

Only 3 mad cow tests done at Texas firm
By Steve Mitchell
United Press International
Published 5/4/2004 7:28 PM

WASHINGTON, May 4 (UPI) -- Only three cows have been tested for mad cow
disease over the past two years at the Texas plant where federal testing
policies for the deadly disease were breached last week, according to U.S.
Department of Agriculture testing records obtained by United Press
International.

The small number of tests occurred despite the fact that the plant, Lone
Star Beef in San Angelo, Texas, processes older, dairy cows, which are
considered to hold a high risk of being infected. The only confirmed mad cow
infection in U.S. herds occurred last December in a 6 1/2-year-old dairy cow
in Washington state.

Lone Star is the 18th largest slaughterhouse in the country and processed
about 350,000 animals over the two-year period. Its low testing rate is
particularly relevant, a USDA veterinarian and a consumer advocate told UPI,
because an animal with symptoms consistent with mad cow disease appeared at
the plant last week but was never tested.

On April 27, a USDA veterinarian stationed at Lone Star condemned a cow
because it exhibited signs of a central nervous system disorder, a possible
indication of mad cow disease or other conditions, such as poisoning or
rabies.

USDA policy is all animals with CNS signs should be tested for mad cow
because they are considered the most likely to be infected with the deadly
disorder. However, for reasons that remain unclear, the animal was sent to a
rendering plant before a sample of its brain could be retained. This means
it can no longer be tested and no one can know for certain whether the cow
was infected.

USDA officials last week announced the testing protocol had been breached
and that it is investigating the incident, but in the meantime it said the
animal was kept out of the human food supply and poses no risk to people.
The concern is humans can contract an incurable, fatal brain disease called
variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease from eating meat infected with the mad cow
pathogen.

Ron DeHaven, administrator at USDA's Animal & Plant Health Inspection
Service, which oversees the agency's mad cow testing program, declined a
request from UPI to comment on the lack of testing at Lone Star.

"USDA is currently investigating the situation in Texas," agency spokesman
Jim Rogers told UPI. "Due to this investigation, I must decline your request
for an interview," Rogers added.

All three animals tested at Lone Star Beef over the past two years were
screened within about a two-week period in fiscal year 2003, according to
the USDA's mad-cow testing records for 2002 and the first 10 months of 2003
that UPI obtained via the Freedom of Information Act.

One animal was tested on Dec. 20, 2002, and two were tested on Jan. 3,
2003. No animals from the plant were tested in fiscal year 2002. The USDA
follows the federal government's fiscal year, which runs from Oct. 1 through
Sept. 30.

The three tested animals were 60, 72 and 96 months old, respectively -- all
elderly by cow standards -- and all were downers, or unable to stand, an
indication the plant was processing both older and high-risk animals. Downer
cows are considered by the USDA to be among those most likely to test
positive for mad cow.

Lone Star Beef did not respond to a request by UPI for comment.
A 1998 issue of Cattle Buyer's Weekly magazine listed the plant's primary
product as boneless cow products, such as ground beef. This generally
consists of meat from culled cows -- those removed from dairy herds because
they are injured, sick or have stopped producing milk, Lester Friedlander, a
former veterinarian with the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service, told
UPI.

This would make it one of the highest-risk plants in the country for
receiving a mad cow, Friedlander said. The low number of mad-cow tests at a
high-risk plant such as Lone Star, indicates "the USDA doesn't want to find
the disease," he charged.

This type of plant "would be number one on my list" to establish a mad cow
surveillance program, Friedlander added. "This should be investigated by
Congress. It's about time Congress woke up and started being a little more
active in this."

UPI previously has reported the USDA's records show no tests had been
conducted from 2002 through July of 2003 at Vern's Moses Lake Meats in
Mabton, Wash., where the nation's only confirmed case of mad cow was
detected last December. Vern's Moses Lake, like Lone Star, processes culled
dairy cows.

Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, one of the most vocal USDA critics in Congress,
called the failure to test the animal in Texas "inexcusable."

Regarding the small number of tests at Lone Star, Harkin's spokesman Matt
Hartwig told UPI, "Senator Harkin will take this incident in Texas very
seriously and will take a look at our efforts to test animals as they come
through the processing facilities."

A Senate staff member, who requested anonymity, told UPI, "I'm sure this
issue won't go away anytime soon." Although the mad-cow issue has quieted
down on Capitol Hill in recent months, the aide said, "I think this will
cause people to pay attention and make sure we are taking the necessary
safeguards."

Felicia Nestor, senior policy adviser to the Government Accountability
Project in Washington, D.C., a group that works with federal whistleblowers,
said, "It's always surprising when you look at this data -- just the gaps in
what would seem sensible."

Nestor, who has followed the USDA's mad cow program closely for several
years, suggested there is an institutional barrier that makes it difficult
for APHIS employees to obtain samples. In many cases, APHIS personnel pick
up brain samples from the plants and send them to a USDA lab in Ames, Iowa,
to be tested.

Nestor said she has heard from USDA inspectors there are instances where the
APHIS veterinarian is located hundreds of miles from some plants and
therefore is inconvenienced by the distance when collecting brain samples.
"The circumstantial evidence would suggest that's the situation here (at
Lone Star Beef)," she said.

USDA's Rogers said he would look into how close the nearest APHIS
veterinarian is to Lone Star, but he did not respond by UPI's publication
time.

Nestor also expressed skepticism about the USDA's expanded mad cow
surveillance program, which is slated to begin on June 1.
"It really suggests we're not going to have adequate coverage under the new
surveillance system unless the agency explicitly states how they're going to
fix this problem," she said.
--
Steve Mitchell is UPI's Medical Correspondent. E-mail sciencemail@upi.com
Copyright © 2001-2004 United Press International