Joe, here is some good news<g>-More Mad Cow Cases Likely, Experts Say
There is a "high probability" that more American cattle have mad cow disease in addition to the lone Holstein found in Washington state in December, a panel of experts says.
Mad cow is likely to have already spread among America's cattle, in the judgment of the panel convened Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The experts said the beef industry must do more to protect Americans and keep the disease at bay, reports the Washington Post.
The panel's chair, Swiss professor Ulrich Kihm, said that, based on his experiences in Europe, the United States could expect to see as many as one new mad cow case among animals per month in the not-too-distant future.
The agent that infected the American Holstein probably originated in Canada or Europe, the panel concluded. So far, there are no reports of Americans being infected with the human form of the disease from eating domestic beef. By contrast, more than 100 human deaths from variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) have been tallied in Europe.
The National Cattlemen's Beef Association quickly called the panel's findings "misguided" and based on circumstances in Europe that are different from here, the Post reports. USDA officials said they were confident that with safeguards that are already in place, any contaminated meat would be kept out of the human food supply.
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Mad cow's 'downer' status disputed
Panel says 'high probability' of more U.S. casesMSNBC staff and news service reports
Updated: 8:46 p.m. ET Feb. 04, 2004The lone U.S. cow with mad cow disease was not a "downer," as federal authorities assert, according to a slaughterhouse worker who says he killed the stricken animal. The claim comes as an international panel told federal officials Wednesday that more U.S. cases of mad cow disease are likely.
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David Louthan, a former employee at Vern’s Moses Lake Meat Co. in Moses Lake, Wash., described his experiences with downer cows to Washington state legislators Tuesday.
In recent newspaper interviews, Louthan described a profoundly different scenario about the death of the ailing cow than that given by the government.
According to Louthan, the Holstein diagnosed with mad cow disease was frenzied and acting wild, which prompted him to shoot a bolt into its head. Prior to that, Louthan said, "she was a walker."
Louthan said the cow could walk on its own and wouldn’t have been tested had he not killed it outside the slaughterhouse. Under plant policy, cows killed outside of the facility are automatically tested. The testing, Louthan said, was merely “a fluke.”
He said he shot the animal because he feared it would trample downed cows that were in the same trailer.
The infected cow was slaughtered Dec. 9 in Moses Lake, about 70 miles northeast of Mabton, Wash., where it had lived on a dairy farm. Louthan claims he was laid off from the company two weeks after killing the cow, after he told television crews that the cow had already been eaten.
Plant manager Tom Ellestad also confirmed in newspaper interviews that the cow in question could walk when it arrived at Vern's. Ellestad did not immediately respond to inquiries from MSNBC.
A third employee of the slaughter house told The Oregonian newspaper that the cow was walking when it arrived.
The Government Accountability Project, which assists whistleblowers, said it investigated and verified Louthan's story. "We talked to him, we checked his story out," said Jack Pannell, the project's communications director, "and were able to say with pretty solid evidence that that cow was a walker."
This portrayal clashes sharply with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's description of the ailing cow. One day after the Dec. 23 announcement that the cow had tested positive for mad cow disease, USDA officials said the animal was a so-called “downer” — an animal too sick or weak to walk by itself.
The USDA has referred to the records of the veterinarian that examined the cow Dec. 9, and says the inspection showed the cow to be a downer. USDA spokesman Steven Cohen said the cow had been injured during calving and was lying down when an inspector checked it at the slaughterhouse.
“In the opinion of the veterinarian that examined the animal, that was a nonambulatory animal,” Cohen said. The testing for mad cow disease was prompted by that conclusion.
Testing for mad cow disease in the United States has largely been limited to downer cows.
Cohen was unsure whether Louthan indeed killed the cow in question, and it was not clear whether the inspection occurred after Louthan has said he shot the cow and scooped out a sample of its brain. USDA officials were not available for additional comment Wednesday evening.
In his testimony Tuesday, Louthan said Vern's specialized in processing downed cows, and decried what he described as gut-wrenching treatment of the nonambulatory cattle, including ripping off their legs and leaving them to lie or cutting off their ears "so the dairy could save a plastic ear tag."
"I've seen and killed thousands of downers," said Louthan, who has said he enjoyed his slaughtering job before being fired. "I'm not the most sensitive guy in the world, but that makes me sick."
More cases expected
Although the cow was traced to a Canadian herd, more than 35 countries including Japan, Mexico and Korea have banned imports of American beef. Those bans, and the U.S. response to the mad cow finding, were the subject of review by a panel of experts, which reported their findings Wednesday to the USDA.
The panel noted there was a "high probability" that other infected cattle have been imported from Canada and possibly Europe. Their report gave no estimate of how many animals, and said contaminated material "has likely" been rendered into cattle feed.
Mad cow disease can be spread through livestock feed contaminated with high risk parts from infected animals, such as the brain, spinal cord or nervous system tissue. Hence, the panel suggested, federal officials should ban this specified risk material (SRM) in livestock feed and pet food to prevent the spread of mad cow disease.
"All SRM must be excluded from all animal feed, including pet food," the panel's chairman, Urlich Kihm, told a special meeting of USDA officials.
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