March 30, 2004 National Public Radio (NPR) All Things Considered 

From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Michele Norris.

MELISSA BLOCK, host:

And I'm Melissa Block.

More than three months after a single case of mad cow disease was found in Washington state, the federal government is still working to convince overseas trading partners that American beef is safe. The USDA this month announced plans to dramatically increase the number of cattle it will test for mad cow disease over the next year. One small Kansas meat packer is proposing a much more extensive measure. It wants to test all of its beef for mad cow disease. From Kansas City, NPR's Greg Allen reports.

GREG ALLEN reporting:

About 35 million cattle are slaughtered in the US each year. Given that number, testing about a quarter-million cattle for mad cow disease may not sound like much, but researchers say it will make it almost certain that if there are any new cases of mad cow disease, they'll find them. It would also mark a tenfold increase in the number of cattle tested each year and require the USDA, private research labs and the states to cooperate in a massive and unprecedented effort.

Mr. GEORGE TEAGARDEN (Livestock Commissioner, Kansas): We're looking for needles in a haystack, and we're spending a lot of money on a disease that doesn't deserve this kind of attention.

ALLEN: George Teagarden is livestock commissioner in Kansas, the nation's second-largest cattle producer. He says since there's no question that US beef is safe, there's only one reason for the costly surveillance effort. It's to reassure foreign customers, especially the number-one customer by far for US beef, Japan.

Mr. TEAGARDEN: It seems like if you want your number one customer to be satisfied, you have to do more and more. And whether this will actually satisfy the Japanese, I'm not sure.

ALLEN: Japan and more than 50 other countries suspended all imports of US beef after mad cow disease was discovered in the US last December. US officials have found no other cases, and last week formally notified trading partners that American beef is safe. But so far, that hasn't convinced the US' big foreign customers to drop their import bans.

There's probably no American meat packer hurt more by the import ban than Creekstone Farms, a small start-up company based in Arkansas City, Kansas. It specializes in premium black Angus beef and, before the import ban, sent about one-fifth of its beef abroad. Out on the floor of the packing plant, Creekstone vice president Kevin Pentz walks over to workers packaging one of the products that sells especially well in Japan, beef tongue.

Mr. KEVIN PENTZ (Vice President, Creekstone Farms): They were paying up to 5, $5.50 a pound on a three-and-a-half-pound tongue. Domestically, we're receiving about $1.80 for this same product. Japan will take 100 percent of all the tongues that we can produce.

ALLEN: Pentz says unless the import bans are lifted soon, his company will be out of business. To prevent that, Creekstone has asked federal regulators to allow it to become the first US company to voluntarily test all of its beef for mad cow disease. Pentz says the company's Japanese customers have assured Creekstone that if it does, Japan will immediately resume allowing its beef back into the country.

The USDA is considering Creekstone's proposal, but in the meantime, the company's not waiting. Workers have already turned two offices into a mad cow testing lab. Windows in the lab look onto the meat-packing plant's floor where, as Pentz notes, cattle heads swing by hooked to a conveyor belt.

Mr. PENTZ: You see right through the sample windows. I mean, we're right there. Grab the sample of the brain stem material to be tested and right through the window.

ALLEN: Creekstone is proposing paying for the testing itself and passing the costs--as much as $20 per steer--along to its customers. Pentz concedes that it's purely a marketing move. Creekstone's cattle are all well under 30 months of age, and only cattle older 30 months are considered at risk for mad cow disease.

Resistance to the plan is coming, not from the company's overseas customers, but here in the US from federal officials and others in the beef industry. Dr. Peter Fernandez is the associate administrator of the Agriculture Department's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.

Dr. PETER FERNANDEZ (Associate Administrator, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Department of Agriculture): There is not justification, a logical scientific justification, for testing animals less than 30 months of age. I guess the concern that we have, to a certain extent, is that, you know, once one company starts to do it, this could start to have a ripple effect.

ALLEN: Opponents, like the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, are concerned that if Creekstone starts testing all of its cattle for mad cow, the rest of the industry, at least any part of it interested in the export market, will eventually have to follow suit. Greg Allen, NPR News, Kansas City.