Doubling Tests for Mad Cow Doesn't Quiet Critics - NYT 2/9/04

[Guest guest]

Unfortunately, here you don't see the graphics that went with this article.

Stunning. Other countries test a major fraction of slaughtered cows. But US

tests a miniscule percentage. So doubling that means nothing. Anyway the

article is still sobering.

 

And of course the reminder of the 36 million cows slaughtered in the US is as

depressing as always. The figure is just so high that I really can't even

comprehend it.

 

 

ys

hkdd

 

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New York Times

February 9, 2004

 

Doubling Tests for Mad Cow Doesnt Quiet Program Critics

 

 

By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.

 

 

 

The United States slaughters about 36 million cattle a

year. It plans to test only 40,000 for mad cow disease this

year.

 

 

By contrast, France, which slaughters about 6 million

cattle, now tests about half of them, and Japan tests all

1.3 million it eats.

 

 

The Department of Agriculture says its program, which

tested 20,000 cattle last year, is more than adequate to

protect the public. But critics call the regimen lax and

unscientific. They argue that there are too few tests, that

too many meat plants escape testing, that the industry has

too much control and that inspectors lack training.

 

 

These arguments gained force last week, when an

international panel of advisers said the Department of

Agriculture should adopt standards like those used in

Europe: mad cow tests that take three hours to get results

instead of a week, tests on all sick, injured or dead

animals at ranches and rendering plants as well as at

slaughterhouses, tests on all animals showing symptoms of

the disease and, just to be sure, tests on some apparently

healthy animals.

 

 

 

Some critics contend the United States' program indicates

the Agriculture Department does not want to find a diseased

cow, for fear of losing $4 billion in exports. "I'd say

they were designing it to minimize the chance of finding

any," said Dr. Michael C. Hansen, who studies food safety

for Consumers Union.

 

 

 

Dr. Ron DeHaven, the department's chief veterinary officer,

denies that, noting that testing has focused on downed

animals, which are more likely to have the disease.

 

 

The agriculture secretary, Ann M. Veneman, has said "47

times the recommended international standard" of tests were

conducted last year, which would mean 433 would have

sufficed. But that standard refers only to testing of

cattle already showing classic "mad" behavior, like

nervousness, kicking when milked and attacking elders in

the herd.

 

 

Since animals with such signs are rare, the department

focuses on the much larger pool of animals crippled for any

reason, like disease or a broken leg. It formerly assumed

there were 200,000 "downers" going to slaughter in the

country - which would mean only 12,500 tests were needed to

establish the disease's existence with 95 percent

probability. But it recently decided to include the 400,000

other downers it estimated were on farms and feedlots,

which about doubled the number to be tested this year, to

just under 40,000.

 

 

But some experts question the assumption that only downers

are at risk, since many healthy-looking animals in Europe

have tested positive.

 

 

The question became more acute last month, when Dave

Louthan, the Washington State slaughterhouse worker who

killed the only animal to test positive so far in the

United States, insisted that it was not a downer. If the

department decides to base its tests on walking cattle, the

number of tests needed to say the country is disease-free

soars.

 

 

Many experts say that if the United States does more

testing, it will almost undoubtedly find more cases.

 

 

 

"That was the pattern in Europe," Dr. Hansen said. "Blanket

denials, then you find one, then once you go to widespread

testing, you find more and more and more."

 

 

Critics say the current testing program is unscientific

because so many plants are not included.

 

 

Last month, United Press International used the Freedom of

Information Act to obtain 35,000 of the test results from

2001 to 2003.

 

They showed that tests were done at fewer than 100 of the

country's 700 slaughterhouses. The testing is voluntary,

and some of the nation's biggest slaughterhouses,

processing 5,000 head a day, did none at all. The four

states that account for 70 percent of all beef - Nebraska,

Kansas, Texas and Colorado - accounted for only 11 percent

of the tests.

 

 

"It looks like they could only talk the really small plants

into doing it," said Felicia Nestor, food safety director

of the Government Accountability Project, a private program

that protects whistleblowers. "That might let them say, if

they found one: `Oh, it's a small, plant, an isolated

incident.' "

 

 

But Dr. DeHaven of the Agriculture Department said the

targets were set by region, not by state. Also, some

slaughterhouses do not accept downers, and so would not

have been asked to test.

 

 

Nonetheless, even plants specializing in broken-down dairy

cows did not conduct tests. Vern's Moses Lake Meats, where

the diseased cow was found Dec. 9, did not perform tests

until October. Midway Meats, where the carcass was sent,

was the only meat plant in Washington out of six there to

do testing.

 

 

Also, some federal meat inspectors say they have never been

trained in spotting the more subtle mad cow symptoms:

tremors, facial paralysis and a hopping gait.

 

 

At a news conference held by the Government Accountability

Project on Jan. 14, Trent J. Berhow, a union official and

inspector with 13 years' experience, said new rules allowed

a slaughterhouse to walk only 10 percent of its cattle past

him. He and other inspectors complain that viewing hundreds

of cattle jammed in holding pens is not sufficient.

 

 

Mr. Berhow added, "Prior to news reports when the disease

was found in this country, the only videotape I had ever

seen of an animal with the disease was on PBS, when mad cow

was found in Britain."

 

 

Paul Carney, an inspector with 28 years' experience, said

the meat plants chose which animals to be tested. "We just

trust the industry to pick out the most suspect cows from

their own herds, then we test those and tell the public

there is no mad cow," Mr. Carney said.

 

 

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