When Ann Veneman was appointed Sec. of Agriculture 3 years ago, I posted
back then, right here on the internet that she'll be a disaster. Here's
what I posted 3 years ago, my predictions have come true:
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&th=cbbd9f03568852c4&seekm=477-3A70C86C-14%40storefull-225.iap.bryant.webtv.net&frame=off
Read the article below, it mentions how a Democrat from my very own home
town, in the bay area, Dr. Stanley Prusner, tried for several months to
get ahold of Ann Veneman, and then he finally got ahold of her just 6
weeks ago. So Dr. Prusner finally DID explain to her that it IS
possible AND necessary to test our beef supply for Mad Cow disease, but
then she did what Republicans routinely do whenever they are presented
with the facts, she ignored him.
It was 7 years ago that Oprah Winfrey had a Doctor on her show who
predicted that Mad Cow disease will hit our shores too at about this
time. That Doctor's predictions are now coming true. I strongly urge
you to read the text of that interview, because the Republican
sponsoring Beef Industry tried to sue Oprah for interviewing that
Doctor. Here's the link, and you can read for yourself what the
Republicans do not want you to know:
http://www.ecomall.com/greenshopping/eioprah.htm
Also, at this other link, is the story of a very prominent Democrat, in
our country, who recently contracted Mad Cow disease herself, it's a
tragic story:
http://www.newsday.com/news/health/ny-lipost233596658dec23,0,7104489,printstory?coll=ny-health-headlines
But first read the story below:
Abel Malcolm
http://www.mad-cow.org
__________
USDA weighs more, faster mad-cow tests
Europe, Japan test millions each year, get results in hours
Donald G. Mcneil Jr., New York Times
Friday, December 26, 2003
As the American beef industry struggles with its first case of mad cow
disease, the Department of Agriculture is debating whether to do far
more screening of meat and change the way meat from suspect animals is
used, department officials say.
The officials declined to say exactly what they would recommend, but
they acknowledged that European and Japanese regulators screen millions
of animals using tests that take only three hours -- fast enough to stop
diseased carcasses from being cut up for food.
American inspectors have tested fewer than 30,000 of the roughly 300
million animals slaughtered in the last nine years, and they get results
days or weeks later.
But the American system was never intended to keep sick animals from
reaching the public's refrigerators, said Dr. Ron DeHaven, the
Agriculture Department's chief veterinarian.
It is "a surveillance system, not a food-safety test," he said in an
interview. Statistically, it is meant only to assure finding the disease
if it exists in one in 1 million animals, and only after slaughter.
A beef industry spokesman said that cattle ranchers would endorse
adopting more rapid tests.
Western European countries generally test all cattle over 2 years old,
all sick cattle and a small percentage of apparently healthy ones. Last
year, they tested a total of 10 million.
Japan tests all the 1.2 million cows it slaughters each year.
DeHaven said Japan tested "too much" and called it "like a doctor
testing every patient who comes through the door for prostate cancer."
American beef is still "extremely safe," said Daniel L. Engeljohn, a
policy analysis official in the Agriculture Department's Food Safety and
Inspection Service, but the discovery of the disease "will spur the U.S.
to look at the preventive measures it's had in place for the last
decade."
Critics of the industry called the current testing inadequate and said
they had been warning for years that mad cow disease was in American
cattle but undetected because too few animals were tested.
They accused the Department of Agriculture of failing to be the vigilant
guardian over the nation's dinner table and said it did not fulfill the
common claim that its inspectors test all obviously sick cows.
How many "downers" -- cows too sick to walk -- are slaughtered each year
is in dispute. The beef industry says it is only about 60,000 among
older animals, while animal rights advocates cite figures based on
European herds that suggest nearly 700,000.
The Agriculture Department says its best guess is from a 1999 beef
industry survey that estimated there were 195,000 downers on ranches,
feedlots and slaughterhouses that year.
In any case, only 20,526 animals were tested last year; through the
1990s, only a few hundred were tested annually.
Which downers might have mad cow disease is also in dispute.
DeHaven said inspectors tested animals that were twitching, aggressive,
nervous, stumbling or showing other signs of brain damage; they also
test some dead or unconscious animals, which are not supposed to be sold
for food.
The beef industry argues that many animals that are falling down are
merely lame. Its critics claim that some downed animals are passed
because they are just conscious enough to respond to a kick.
Tests in Japan have found the brain-wasting disease in apparently
healthy animals.
Dr. Stanley Prusiner, a UCSF neurologist who discovered the proteins
that cause mad cow disease, said he had warned Agriculture Secretary Ann
Veneman recently that it was "just a matter of time" before the disease
would be found in the United States.
He said he had told her the United States should immediately start
testing every cow that showed signs of illness and eventually every
single cow upon slaughter.
Prusiner, a Nobel laureate, said fast, accurate and inexpensive tests
are available, including one that he has patented through his university
that he says could add 2 or 3 cents a pound to the cost of beef.
The scientist said Veneman was getting poor advice from USDA scientists
and had not seemed to share his sense of urgency when he met with her
six weeks ago, after several months of seeking a meeting.
"We have met with many experts in this area, including Dr. Prusiner,"
said Veneman spokeswoman Julie Quick. "We welcome as much scientific
input and insight as we can get on this very important issue. We want to
make sure that our actions are based on the best available science."
On Thursday the Agriculture Department said it had received confirmation
of its own tests from the Veterinary Laboratories Agency in Waybridge,
England, that a Holstein cow that was slaughtered on Dec. 9 had the
degenerative brain ailment bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow
disease. More testing is planned.
An official close to the investigation said the cow came from Sunny Dene
Ranch in Mabton, Wash., which has about 4,000 dairy cows.
Although neither DeHaven nor Engeljohn would say exactly what changes
were contemplated, some food safety experts want a ban on eating any
brain or nerve tissue, or on eating older animals, which are more likely
to harbor mad cow. Others have suggested testing millions of animals and
creating a national ear-tagging system that would track each animal from
birth to slaughter. Others want to stop feeding herbivores any animal
protein, which transmits the disease.
In some European countries, diseased carcasses are boiled down, dried
into powder and then incinerated.
Engeljohn did say the department might take measures like those Canada
adopted after it found a mad cow case in May.
But other than slaughtering and testing the herds in Alberta that the
animal came from, Canada did not take aggressive measures compared with
those used in Europe and Japan.
It has tested only about 10,000 animals in the last decade and has had a
serious backlog of cases. Its one diseased cow was slaughtered in
January and probably made into pet food. It was marked for testing
because it was thin; pneumonia, not brain disease, was suspected. It was
not tested until May.
"Compared to our neighbor to the north, we did pretty well," said John
Maas, a professor of veterinary medicine at UC Davis.
URL:
sfgate.com/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/12/26/MNGRB3UMTV1.DTL