I threw this page together initially to half-ass to document info I'd found while web surfing.  It's grown a bit from there but still captures only a slice of all the info that's available.   Unlike the lie told by Fox News, I make not claim that the info selected or the summaries, comments and snippets are "fair and balanced: :-)

An excerpt from the 12/24/03 Guardian news article on the evolving Mad Cow story:

"I plan to serve beef for my Christmas dinner and we remain confident in our food supply," Ms Veneman said, in an echo of the then British agriculture minister John Selwyn Gummer's ill-fated ploy to have his young daughter eat a hamburger on behalf of British beef in 1990.

As recently as Oct. 2003, the laws and regulations which existed to limit the spread of Mad Cow were being gutted by the current regime- e.g.:

8/8/03     Veneman Announces that Import Permit Applications for Certain Ruminant Products from Canada will be Accepted + Risk Analysis

10/31/03 USDA Issues Proposed Rule to Allow Live Animal Imports from Canada

(The above links are to USDA pages which I saved on 12/28/03-  just in case the regime tries to cover it's tracks by changing or deleting the USDA pages- like it has done with other web pages <article>.<article>)

The additional rules the USDA announced on 12/20/04 are a much belated step in the right direction but are still  inadequate.

After BSE and accompaning vCJD struck Britian and, eariler this year, BSE was found in Canada, why were existing regulations being dismantled and, worse yet, why were tougher laws and regulations being scuttled?  I suspect the offical party line is that and controls and changes to them were adequate.  I think the answer to "why" is best found by "following  the money".  As shown below,  ripublicans have gotten  84% of the bribes (er, "political contributions") from the livestock industry so far in 2004.  The #1 livestock industry contributor in 2004 is the National Cattlemen's Beef Assn- with 85% going to the ripublicans and Shrub received over $500,000 from the industry in '00 (vs. a relative pitance of $20,750 for Gore).

Those contributions paid off well  - the background of some of the big cheese at the USDA:

• The Mad Cow herself is a former cattle industry lobbyist (source 1 & 2),
• Her chief of staff was a lobbyist for the industry (source &  2  )
• Her spokeswoman was public relations director for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association (source &  2  )
• The guy responsible for Marketing and Regulatory Programm worked there also   (source)
• Her senior advisor on Food and Nutrition Issues worked there also (source-ditto)

• If more extensive and better testing (see CU's requests: 2, 3, 4)  of cattle for BSE is warranted or would it just enrich corporations which sell the tests
• If muscle cuts are "safe"  (article 1  & 2 )
• If vCJD is responsible for the 50-fold increase in deaths attributed to Alzheimer's since 1979- i.e. vCJD has been misdiagnosed as Alheimers or other diseases

Although our family enjoys beef, given the above, the additional info I've found surfing the sites listed below, our family is adopting the "free market" approach so slavishly  favored by regime currently in power- we're boycotting beef..   When the current regime is dethroned and if/when regulation of the beef industry is based on sanity rather than bribes by the rich and greedy, we might reconsider beef but, even then, we won't eat anything products containing AMR system derived beef.

Consumers Union has been very active in advocating tougher laws and requlations as well as providing consumers valuable advice on food safety.  I've done a CU page which provided  links to their documents along with relevan snippets and comments.

GAO  I've also thrown together a web page listing GAO documents. which includes links to there mad cow related documents and summaries/snippets.   The first listed report is well worth a read: GAO-02-183 "Improvements in the Animal Feed Ban and Other Regulatory Areas Would Strengthen U.S. Prevention Efforts".

For current news stories, the Organic Consumers Association mad cow page has hundreds of articles on Mad Cow disease: The page appears to be updated on a daily basis since it includes late breaking news.  The press articles contained on the site are a great resource, however, some of the non-press articles might be better read with a bit more skepticism.

The best scientific info on the state of research on prions and their relation to TSE is the Natl. Academy of Science's pre-publication report: Advancing Prion Science: Guidance for the National Prion Research Program  (2004).   It's long and rather difficult to read, but, is very informative.  If you wish to read it, I've done a NAS web page that will help obtain the report.  The earlier, interim report is also listed there.

"One of our philosophies is minimal government involvement and letting the industry address these things," said Terry Stokes, chief executive at the association.

Cattle and livestock interests gave almost $22 million to political campaigns since the 1990 elections, with three-quarters going to Republicans, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks campaign finance.

Even outside of mad cow, the existing requlation of food safety in the US is sadly lacking.  It's addressed by numerous agencies- for example, the GAO notes that a bagel dog is regulated by one agency while a corn dog is handled by another (ref).   Another glaring problem is the conflicting mission of the USDA- to boost agriculture and to regulate it as well as food safety.  Numerous GAO reports, as well as consumer groups have repeatly urged a single, independent agency address food safety.

The inability of the USDA to enforce a recall of beef is a glaring example of inadequacy.  A 1/6/04 SF Chronicle article gives details and further notes that the USDA won't even release the names of retail establishments who have received recalled meat- it only releases the states affected and further prohibits the states from releasing that information

... Veneman....“While we are confident that the United States has safeguards and firewalls needed to protect public health, these additional actions will further strengthen our protection systems.”

Downer Animals. Effectively immediately, USDA will ban all downer cattle from the human food chain.

Product Holding. USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service inspectors will no longer mark cattle tested for BSE as “inspected and passed” until confirmation is received that the animals have, in fact, tested negative for BSE. This new policy will be in the form of an interpretive rule that will be published in the Federal Register.

    To prevent the entry into commerce of meat and meat food products that are adulterated, FSIS inspection program personnel perform ante- and post-mortem inspection of cattle that are slaughtered in the United States. As part of the ante-mortem inspection, FSIS personnel look for signs of disease, including signs of central nervous system impairment. Animals showing signs of systemic disease, including those exhibiting signs of neurologic impairment, are condemned. Meat from all condemned animals has never been permitted for use as human food.

Specified Risk Material. Effective immediately upon publication in the Federal Register, USDA will enhance its regulations by declaring as specified risk materials skull, brain, trigeminal ganglia, eyes, vertebral column, spinal cord and dorsal root ganglia of cattle over 30 months of age and the small intestine of cattle of all ages, thus prohibiting their use in the human food supply. Tonsils from all cattle are already considered inedible and therefore do not enter the food supply. These enhancements are consistent with the actions taken by Canada after the discovery of BSE in May.

    In an interim final rule, FSIS will require federally inspected establishments that slaughter cattle to develop, implement, and maintain procedures to remove, segregate, and dispose of these specified risk materials so that they cannot possibly enter the food chain. Plants must also make that information readily available for review by FSIS inspection personnel. FSIS has also developed procedures for verifying the approximate age of cattle that are slaughtered in official establishments. State inspected plants must have equivalent procedures in place.

Advanced Meat Recovery. AMR is an industrial technology that removes muscle tissue from the bone of beef carcasses under high pressure without incorporating bone material when operated properly. AMR product can be labeled as “meat.” FSIS has previously had regulations in place that prohibit spinal cord from being included in products labeled as “meat.” The regulation, effective upon publication in the Federal Register, expands that prohibition to include dorsal root ganglia, clusters of nerve cells connected to the spinal cord along the vertebrae column, in addition to spinal cord tissue. Like spinal cord, the dorsal root ganglia may also contain BSE infectivity if the animal is infected. In addition, because the vertebral column and skull in cattle 30 months and older will be considered inedible, it cannot be used for AMR.

In March 2003, FSIS began a routine regulatory sampling program for beef produced from AMR systems to ensure that spinal cord tissue is not present in this product. In a new interim final rule announced today, establishments have to ensure process control through verification testing to ensure that neither spinal cord nor dorsal root ganglia is present in the product.
<snip>
USDA will prohibit use of mechanically separated meat in human food.
<snip>
For more than a decade, the United States has had in place an aggressive surveillance, detection and response program for BSE. The United States has tested over 20,000 head of cattle for BSE in each of the past two years, 47 times the recommended international standard.
<snip>
An independent analysis by Harvard in 2001 and again in 2003 shows that the risk of BSE spreading in the United States is low and any possible spread would have been reversed by the controls we have already put in place.

Why weren't these regulations put into place earlier?  I suspect the offical answer is that the Havard risk studies indicated they were not needed.    The ban on downers was needed earlier- take a look at the condition of downers in the KIRO-TV videos - would you want to eat meat from the downers shown?   Also, meat from downer cattle was previously banned from the school luch program.   If kids shouldn't be eating the stuff in school, they should have been eating the stuff at home either.  Meat from all downers should have been banned from the human food chain long ago.

Testing remains inadequate.
The USDA says they will double the number of annual tests to 40,000.  That's only a tiny percentage of the 37 million cattle slaughtered each year.  Europe, the UK and Japan conduct many more tests.  For example, the NY Times reports that Belgium, a tiny beef producer, tested about 20 times as many cattle as the USDA did last year. (A govt. report says in '02 450,000 animals tested-  and 38 cases of BSE confirmed).  Japan tests all cattle people are going to eat.  The USDA touts compliance with international testing standards but those are minimum standards. Others believe the USDA doesn't want to test more cattle because they know it will turn up additional cases of BSE.

The tests used by the USDA are expensive and take much too long to return results.   Newer testing methods- such as those used elsewhere are faster and cheaper.  Apparently, the USDA objects to these tests because of the very infrequency return false positive results.  Again, we can learn from other countries that have been down the BSE road before us- they use the tests for screening and conduct confirmation tests with more accurate tests.

Finally, the Consumers Union has advocated much wider and quicker  testing (see 7/03 CU letter to USDA)

AMR
Although removal and disposal of the specified tissue at slaughter might help, meat from ARM should be banned for human and cattle consumption.  Just sampling by the FSIS is inadequate to monitor the processors' verification testing (which I don't trust anyway).  A FSIS '03 followup to a '02 survey of meat from AMR showed CNS tissue in meat from about 74% of the plants initially surveyed in '02 and, worse yet, 35% still had the problem in the followup.  The document indicates that more frequent sampling was to be conducted in '03 (and mentioned in the press release above).  This is still a horrid track record.  In addition, a '02 FSIS thinking paper (my summary) indicates only 4 pounds of meat is recovered by AMR.  That's a very poor cost/food safety trade-off in my book.  Update:  the published rule (docket 03-025IF) indicates that 23 of the 340 random samples collected Mar-Dec '03 had CNS.  That's an improvement but 13.6% of the later followup samples still had CNS!

30 Months?
The above '02 FSIS thinking paper proposed 24 months cattle age as as a dividing line rather than the 30 months in the above.and contains this:  "...the BSE agent has only been detected in those tissues (ed. except distal ileum) when the cattle are over 24 months of age, and most often in cattle over 32 months of age (although there has been one case in which the agent was detected in a 20-month old cow)"   In the last two months, Japan has reported BSE in cows aged 20 and 21 months.  (article)

BSE can still enter the food chain
Meat from cattle- and of particular concern, meat from downers and rejectted AMR can still be used in things such as pet, pig and chicken feed.  It can then reach cattle via compliance with the "feed ban", rendering the pigs and chickens for cattle food or using chicken litter (with uneaten feed) as cattle feed.  The Consumers Union has repeatly advocated a wide feed ban.  (ref1ref2ref3.).  OTHO, the FDA has primary responsibility for the feed ban

Other
 I've found the cited '01 Havard risk assessment but not the '03 one touted in the announcement.  I did find a  0/03 FSIS risk assessment but it was done to support loosening the ban on Canadian beef- not enhanced regulations on this side of the border.   I've done a summary of that RA

The measures in the 12/20/03 press release didn't actually put the measures it listed  into affect.  They don't go into effect until 1/12/04 as per a 1/8/04 USDA press release.  The new rules:

Surveillance Program

Docket No. 03-048N, Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy Surveillance Program    This is a Notice saying inspectors are no longer marking cattle tested for BSE as “inspected and passed” until confirmation is received that the cattle have, in fact, tested negative for BSE

SMR
Docket 03-025IF, Prohibition of the Use of Specified Risk Materials for Human Food and Requirements for the Disposition of Non-Ambulatory Disabled Cattle
This Interim Rule lists parts of cattle 30 months of age or older and the small intestine of all cattle as specified risk materials, thus prohibiting their use in the human food supply.
Also says, "... FSIS has developed procedures for verifying the approximate age of cattle that are slaughtered".  There's a 90 day comment period.

AMR
Docket No. 03-038IF, Meat Produced by Advanced Meat/Bone Separation Machinery and Meat Recovery (AMR) Systems
The PR notes spinal cord is already prohibited in "meat" and adds the DRG.  It also notes that the vertebral column and skull in cattle 30 months and older will be considered inedible hence they cannot be used for AMR

Air injection Stunning
Docket No. 01-033IF, Prohibition of the Use of Certain Stunning Devices Used to Immobilize Cattle During Slaughter-----  Bans air-injection stunning.

The press release gives info on how to comment on the rules- there's a 90 day deadline.

The press release also notes publication of a notice announcing that FSIS inspectors are no longer marking cattle tested for BSE as “inspected and passed” until confirmation is received that the cattle have, in fact, tested negative for BSE and that FSIS will be issuing a directive to inspection program personnel outlining this policy.

I'm still reading the rule notices...

And it isn't clear that the sick animal's muscle tissue wasn't contaminated by spinal cord when it was slaughtered. Agriculture officials say the cow's spinal cord was sawed in half during the normal processing of its carcass, raising the possibility that it was contaminated by bits of infectious spinal cord.

Consumers Union in a 12/23/03 press release states:  "We are also disturbed that the nervous system tissue removed from the animal was sent to be rendered. Rendered remains can be then fed to other animals such as pigs and chickens. Both the United States Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration need to act immediately to protect consumers."  A USDA BSE chronology states CNS when to the renders.  The additional measures will apparently put a stop to this practice, but (again) the USDA was too late.

Steaks and hamburgers made from beef muscle haven't been shown to be dangerous, but some leading experts in Europe and the U.S. say the risks of meat from sick cattle remain unknown, and new studies have implicated muscles in other species.

And over the last decade, British scientists scrutinized scores of parts from sick cows, grinding them up and injecting them into the brains of healthy calves. In those experiments, animals injected with brain tissue always died. But so far, none of the cattle inoculated with muscle have become sick.  Paul Brown, an expert on prion diseases at the National Institutes of Health, says such studies are a strong point against muscle being infectious.

...But muscle meat alone -- beef, in short -- appears safe.  The evidence for this is strong and convincing..... But as with all assessment of biological risk, it is not absolute and unqualified.

"I'd like to say for sure that muscle is safe. I'm reasonably sure that muscle is safe. But like  everything else in science, the answer is incomplete," said Paul Brown, a physician and  neuroscientist at the National Institutes of Health. He is a leading authority on bovine  spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), the formal name of mad cow disease.

In the United States, some nervous system material that is known to be sometimes infectious  if an animal has BSE was allowed into the meat supply as recently as last year. (The material,  called "dorsal root ganglia." sticks out between the bones of the spine. It can get into meat  when mechanical devices are used to remove muscle from bone. But until last month's  detection of BSE in an American cow, government experts did not view that small amount of  contamination as especially risky.

The evidence that muscle from a BSE-infected cow cannot transmit the disease comes from  a laborious experiment performed in Britain over the past 13 years.

<snipped desc. of experiment- basically, calves fed BSEed brains, killed periodically over 40 months and injected extracts from various tissues of the carcases to a total of 325 other calves.  The later were periodically killed and examined for BSE>

The first organ to become infectious was the far end of the small intestine. It turned six months after a calf ate BSE-infected brain. The tonsils were second; they had enough prions at 10 months to be infectious. The brainstem did not become infectious until 32 months into the  experiment -- almost three years after a calf ate the infected brains.

Nearly six years after the injections, no calf that received muscle extract from BSE-infected cows has ever become infected. Evidence from other studies found that blood and milk from  infected cows also are not infectious. These are the crucial findings that lead experts to proclaim that muscle meat is safe to eat.

<article notes that study has been done only once and describes two other studies which "have raised small red flags:" >.

Stanley B. Prusiner, the scientist who won a Nobel Prize in 1997 for describing how prions  work, did an experiment in which he took muscle from the hindquarters of mice infected with  scrapie, the sheep disease. He injected muscle extract into the brains of healthy mice. They became infected.

[the reporter neglected to also mention "Widespread PrPSc accumulation in muscles of hamsters orally infected with scrapie" a study published May, 2003--BSE coordinator]

A second study, published in November in the New England Journal of Medicine, examined  tissue from people who had died of spontaneous CJD. A team of Swiss researchers found  that PrP prions were detectable in the muscle tissue of one-third of them.  Although neither of the studies involved beef, together they make clear that muscle tissue in some species can carry enough PrP prions to transmit disease. This raises the possibility that it might occasionally happen in cattle muscle, too.

Mad Cow USA: The Nightmare Begins is EXCELLENT.   It's by John Stauber, the co-author of the often cited 1997 book "Mad Cow USA: Could the Nightmare Happen Here?".   A snippet:

The United States has spent millions of dollars on PR convincing Americans that mad cow could never happen here, and now the USDA is engaged in a crisis management plan that has federal and state officials, livestock industry flacks, scientists and other trusted experts assuring the public that this is no big deal. Their litany of falsehoods include statements that a "firewall" feed ban has been in place in the United States since 1997, that muscle meat is not infective, that no slaughterhouse waste is fed to cows, that the United States tests adequate numbers of cattle for mad cow disease, that quarantines and meat recalls are just an added measure of safety, that the risks of this mysterious killer are miniscule, that no one in the United States has ever died of any such disease, and on and on.

The latest spin is to blame the United States mad cow crisis on Canada. On Saturday, December 27, with no conclusive proof whatsoever, the United States Department of Agriculture announced that the mad cow in Washington state had actually entered the United States years ago from Canada. This set off an understandable howl from the Canadian government, and by Sunday the United States was forced to back off somewhat, but clearly the PR ploy is to get Americans thinking that this is Canada's problem, not ours.

Even if Canada does turn out to be the source of America's first case of mad cow disease, numerous questions remain: How many other infected cows have crossed our porous borders and been processed into human and animal food? Why are United States slaughterhouse regulations so lax that a visibly sick cow was sent into the human food chain weeks before tests came back with the mad cow findings? Where did the infected byproduct feed that this animal ate come from, and how many thousands of other animals have eaten similar feed?

The article also gives instruction on where on the web the book "Mad Cow USA" can be downloaded- and at no charge!
( www.prwatch.org or directly by www.prwatch.org/books/mcusa.pdf. )

--------------------
The Mad Cow lies
A snippet from a December 31, 2003 TODAY Show interview:with the Mad Cow

LAUER: One of the things announced is: effective immediately, the USDA will ban all downer cattle. These are cattle, and we are going to see some pictures in a second, that are basically too sick to walk, and that fall down a lot. They are going to ban the meat from this cattle from the  human food chain.

I have to say, Secretary Veneman, as I look at the footage of these cows, I think: my goodness, who would want to eat the meat from this cattle? Why wasn't this done earlier?

SEC. VENEMAN: Well, again, no cattle that are sick could enter the human food chain. Many of these downer cattle-- and I know the pictures don't accurately depict the kind that go--had gone into the food chain before yesterday's announcement. Many of them had a broken leg and the cattle themselves were not at risk. Diseased animals were prohibited from the food chain even before this announcement.

If "Diseased animals were prohibited from the food chain even before this announcement", why was a recall of over 5 tons of meat requested?  The USDA's answer is , basically, it was due to an "abundance of caution".  Meat from the cow could have been contaminated when the carcase was sawn in half as noted in a WSJ article.    If the FSIS truly believes the recall meat containing the mad cow is safe, I suggest serving the recalled meat to all top members of the Bush regime.

The first in the series quotes a former USDA vet. who trained federal meat inspectors for years as saying:  "If it was up to me, I'd probably condemn all downers because I wouldn't want to take the chance of my family eating it,"   Noting that the law requires condeming dying cattle, the  vet indicated that "federal meat inspectors routinely ignore that segment of the food safety regulation under pressure from plant owners and the USDA".   Also: "Congress recently banned the use of downer meat in the federal school lunch program"  The series continues with the USDA acting very badly, indicates renders charge $100 to kill and haul away a downer from a farm and that some supermarket chains- Safeway requires a signed statement from suppliers that downers are not used..  .

Links to the excellent KIRO-TV series of reports on downer cows as food

1. Meat From Dying, Sick Or Diseased Cows Getting into Food  10/02 (features plant where the mad cow as debone)
2. Volatile Reaction From Viewers, Feds, To Meat Investigation  10/02
3. Downer Cows' Treatment May Be Illegal  11/02
4. Downer Industry Thrives Despite Consumers' Concerns  11/02
5. New Revelations Add To Downer Cows Controversy    6/03
6. State Helps Fund Attack On Downer Cow Investigations   6/03
7. Market For Downer Cow Beef Is Dying   6/03

You might want to read this other excellent  article by John Stauber- an investigative writer, executive director of the Center for Media and Democracy and co-author of the 1997 book "Mad Cow USA"    Some snippets.:

The 1997 FDA feed regulation is not a feed ban, but a labeling requirement that meat and bone  meal from cattle and other ruminants be labeled 'do not feed to ruminants.'  <snip>   There is no on-farm inspection of how even  properly labeled feed is actually used, and such inspection is impossible.  <snip>  The 1997 feed labeling regulation is so bad that it even allows animals known to be infected with mad cow and similar diseases to be rendered into animal feed, despite the fact that the World Health Organization has urged for a decade that no infected animals be fed to animals or people. <snip>  Also, under the 1997 FDA regulations, all parts of cattle are rendered and fed to pigs and poultry, which are rendered and all parts are fed back to themselves and to cattle. This feeding loop can spread and amplify mad cow disease, and even create and spread new, never before seen, strains of the disease.

 ---------------
Then there's an article  from the 1/26/03 Seattle Times with the lead:

Despite strict rules designed to prevent the spread of mad-cow disease, a Tacoma feed company was cited in July for cleaning and labeling violations that could have allowed the distribution of contaminated cattle feed. Two Eastern Washington feed businesses also have been cited, though for less serious violations.

A 12/31/01 Washington Times article details the inadequacy of the current testing for BSE   The lead sentence:

U.S. agriculture officials will continue using a test for mad cow disease that takes more than a week to obtain results, despite cries from consumer groups to authorize the use of faster systems adopted in Europe.

--------------------
From a 12/28/03 PHXnews article (note that this is before the 12/31/03 USDA announcement.

The US tests 0.00055 percent of slaughtered cattle for mad cow disease; the Europeans test 25 percent. The Japanese test 100 percent <snip>

Dr. Prusiner is the Nobel Prize-winning [1997] neurologist who discovered prions, the aberrently folded proteins that cause BSE in cows and vCJD in humans.   <snip>   Prusiner tried, since the Canadian case was detected in May, to get an appointment with US Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman, a peach-grower's daughter andformer cattle industry lobbyist (according to some reports). ABS-CBN article He finally got his appointment 6 weeks ago with the help of Karl Rove, whom Democrats consider President Bush's political attack dog, of all people, whom he just happened to bump into. Dr. Prusiner told Ms. Veneman that cattle should be tested before slaughter and that it could be done for 2 or 3 cents per pound of beef sold. He left the meeting feeling that Ms. Veneman didn't share his sense of urgency. He told her that a BSE case in the US was "just a matter of time." He was right. Too bad Dr. Prusiner didn't take Mr. Rove along to the meeting. Now Mr. Rove will have to deal with it after the fact.

This nation should immediately start testing every cow that shows signs of illness and eventually every single cow upon slaughter, he said he told Veneman. Japan has such a program and is finding the disease in young asymptomatic animals.    <snip>

The Japanese experience is instructive, Prusiner said. Three and a half years ago, that country identified its first case of mad-cow disease. The government then said it would begin testing all cows older than 30 months, as they do in Europe. Older animals presumably have a greater chance of showing the disease, Prusiner said.

Japanese consumer groups protested and the government then said it would test every cow upon slaughter, Prusiner said. The Japanese have four million cattle and slaughter 1.2 million of them each year. The United States has 100 million cattle and kills 35 million a year.

Early this fall, Japanese surveillance found two new cases of the disease in young animals, aged 21 and 23 months.  Under no testing regime, except Japan, would these cases ever be found he said.

-------------------------
The 12/30/03 SF Chronicle article Scientists divided on disease's risk to humans - is well balanced and points out the vested interests which some scientists- Dr. Prusiner in particular- have in the matter....

Armed with such findings, Prusiner has advocated that all U.S. cattle slaughtered for human consumption be tested for mad cow disease.

"There are still too many unanswered questions for the government to be reassuring the public so strongly,''  Prusiner said in a telephone interview.

Currently, only about 20,000 of the 35 million cattle slaughtered in the United States each year are tested for BSE. Most are "downer cows,'' animals that are unable to walk because of injury or illness and by their behavior show a higher potential of having contracted the disease. The dairy cow in Mabton, Wash., was such a case. She had become partially paralyzed following the birth of her calf.

Yet USDA officials acknowledged yesterday that they did not know how many downer cows are slaughtered annually. The system of testing suspect cows is designed as a surveillance tool that, by sampling the most suspicious animals, could reliably pick up mad cow disease in the U.S. if as few as one in 1 million cows have it.
<snip>

Prusiner acknowledges that he could gain financially from such a program. He is a co-founder of InPro
Biotechnology of South San Francisco, a company that has developed a rapid test for mad cow disease and a
device that can process 8,000 test results per day.
<snip>

But Jiri Safar, a researcher at Prusiner's UCSF Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases, cautions that the discovery of prions in muscle tissue should not be taken lightly.

Although prions are primarily associated with nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, he notes that muscle tissue itself is laced with nerves. "Large nerves branch, and finish in muscle tissue," he said. "Muscles move because they intimately relate to nerves, which supply the signals for movement.'' To assume some sort of separation of nerve tissue from muscle tissue "is not anatomically correct,'' he added.

Safar, who says he no longer eats red meat himself, said that the minimum dose of prion-infected brain tissue known to cause disease is the equivalent of one-fifth of a drop of water.

The UCSF researcher, who also holds stock in InPro, contends that tests to determine conclusively whether BSE prions exist in the muscles of beef cattle have yet to be completed.

Northeastern University professor Ira Krull warns there are many more undocumented  cases of mad cow disease just waiting to be discovered in the U.S. He advocates for mad  cow disease testing of all slaughtered cattle, before their beef is shiped to market.  Krull, with assistant chemistry professor Norman Chiu are working to develop an
antimortem clinical test.....

England, in response to their mad cow disease epidemic in the 1980s and 1990s, instates  mandatory testing of all slaughtered cows intended for market, keep detailed records of all  cows within their borders, and banned the use of all ruminant feed. Currently the U.S. and  Canada lag on all accounts, says Krull.

Testing of all cattle as part of the USDA's regular procedure, according to Krull, the cost of  adding such testing is minimal, between $20 to $25 per cow, which translates into about six cents per pound of beef. Krull says the issue of testing for mad cow disease is highly  political. The more cattle tested, the more likely it is that some will be found with mad cow disease. "They don't want to find it," says Krull. "The USDA really should be funding this like crazy, but their not."

"I don't believe we will see change until the beef industry is forced to be accountable for selling contaminated products to consumers," said Krull.

It is also possible that BSE occurs sporadically in a small portion of cattle1*, as CJD does in the human population.  If BSE were to occur spontaneously in a U.S.bovine today,  this country needs to be prepared to ensure that potentially highly infectious material is not allowed to contaminate batches of meat, with the potential of exposing a huge number of consumers.

The U.S. government's monitoring system for cases of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a fatal human brain illness, could be missing tens of thousands of victims, scientists and consumer advocates have told United Press International.
<snip>

At the same time autopsies have been declining, the number of deaths attributed to Alzheimer's has increased more than 50-fold since 1979, going from 857 deaths then to nearly 50,000 in 2000. Though it is unlikely the dramatic increase in Alzheimer's is due entirely to misdiagnosed CJD cases, it "could explain some of the increase we've seen," Manuelidis said.

CJD, a TSE,  spontaneously occurs in humans at the low rate of about 1/1 million/year.  It usually strikes older folks.   The variant type, vCJD was fire dignosed in the UK and  is caused by eating BSE infected meat.  It typicall strikes younger folks.

The article In N.J., a link to mad cow? in the 1/7/04 Philadelphia Inquirer reports on 7 deaths attributed to CJD in New Jersey.  An accountant's investigation into the death of a 29 year old acquaintance from the disease revealed several more deaths from the rare disease and a commonality- a race track.  She reported the data to the CDC and USDA.  The CDC looked into the case and decided all deaths were from CJD, not vCJD.  The accountant heard nothing from the CDC until 12/31 (after the first US mad cow was confirmed) when they contacted her to ask several question.     The article also notes a study in mice which suggests BSE can manifest itself as BSE as well as CJD (not vCJD)   The article also quotes one of the authors of the mistaken autopsy studies as saying:

 About one person in a million gets sporadic CJD each year, he said, but that doesn't preclude the chance that a few will show up in the same place.  He said he thought the USDA and meat industry should be doing more testing to protect public health, but he does not believe the medical community has missed an epidemic of people getting brain disease from beef. "With 30 Alzheimer's centers around the country, people pay  close attention to demented people," he said.

The Organic Consumers Association mad cow page has a great page with hundreds of articles on Mad Cow disease: The page appears to be updated on a daily basis since it includes late breaking news.  The press articles contained on the site are a great resource, however, some of the non-press articles might be better read with a bit more skepticism...   Here's a mere taste of what's on their page:

An excellent June '03  NY Times article on BSE - specifically, on the alledged "Species Barrier".  A telling quote from a guy who should know:

"We don't understand what's happening," said Dr. Stanley Prusiner, a neurology professor at the University of California at San Francisco who won a Nobel Prize for elucidating prions' disease-causing powers. "Anyone who believes we understand what's happening is mistaken."

A May '03 Toronto Star article which details the Canadian experience with BSE.  It contains many items applicable to the USA case at hand.  I liked:

By publicly eating steak last week,  Chretien (Canadian prime minister) was trying to send a signal that Canadian beef is safe. In fact, his televised meal proved nothing. For if BSE-infected meat has entered the human food chain, the results may not show up for years. Recent British research puts the incubation period for variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD) - the fatal, affliction that literally chews holes in a person's brain and is caused by mad cow - at 12.6 years.
(Maybe this is where the Mad Cow (photo above) got the impedius to tout beef as her Christmas dinner.)

A 12/24/03 article by Dr. Michael Greger of the organization- USDA Misleading American Public about Beef Safety   A snippet

It is not surprising that the U.S. has mad cow disease given our flaunting of World Health Organization recommendations.[1]   What is surprising, however, is that we actually found a case given the inadequacy of our surveillance program, a level of testing that Nobel laureate Stanley Prusiner, probably the world's leading expert on these diseases, calls simply "appalling."[2]   Europe and Japan follow World Health Organization guidelines[3] and test every downer cow for mad cow disease [4]; the U.S. has tested less than 2% of downers over the last decade.[5]   Most of the U.S. downer cows, too sick or injured to even walk, end up on our dinner plates.[6]
(see the article for copious footnotes for further reading)

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From the guy the beef industry sued over his comments on the beef industry on Oprah's show:
MAD COWBOY: Plain Truth from the Cattle Rancher Who Won't Eat Meat.  An except:

Cattle ranchers turned cows into cannibals. Until August 1997, cattle were routinely fed the remains of other cows. The Department of  Agriculture and the FDA banned the practice, fearing the spread of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, better known as Mad Cow Disease. But it remains legal to feed cows "rendered" -- dead and ground up -- parts of certain animals, including the blood of other cows, despite the fact that this practice may allow deadly illnesses to enter the food chain. In 1995, five million tons of processed slaughterhouse leftovers were sold for animal feed.

Dr. Stanley Prusiner is the scientist who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his discovery of prions, the infectious agents thought to cause bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease. The word Dr. Prusiner uses to describe the efforts of the U.S. government and the cattle industry is "terrible."

Now that the first case of mad cow disease in the United States has been confirmed, Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman's subservience to the agribusiness interests she once served as a lobbyist is no longer merely troublesome. It's dangerous.   Veneman was put in charge of the Department of Agriculture by President Bush because he knew the longtime advocate for the genetic modification of food, factory farming and free trade policies that favor big   agribusiness over family farmers and consumers could be counted on to choose the side of business interests over the public interest.

By failing to acknowledge genuine concerns regarding BSE, and by failing even now to respond to those concerns, Veneman has failed U.S. farmers and consumers. She should be ashamed, and the rest of us should be looking for better sources of information about the safety of our food supply.

Then there's some more info from John Stauber via another article:

"Down the road, we're going to see people dying of mad cow" in the human form, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, Stauber said. "That's when consumer outrage is going to really kick in" and meaningful regulation might finally come.   Until then, Stauber said, we can expect to see the USDA focus its energy on damage control, spin and "smearing its critics."

A blog on Mad Lobbyist Disease- (a witty and ironic title)

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Official Mad Cow Disease Archive  8000+ articles worldwide news articles.  Extensive but not up-dated since 3/01

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A 1/15/02 FSIS Thinking Paper on additional measures to "minimize human exposure to BSE agents in the unlikely event that it is introduced in the U.S"   Basically, it has proposes several options for possible adoption as new rules, and requests comments and Harvard to evaluate them using their model.   I've done a summary/snippets of this paper- here's a very brief summary: .

It list 3 primary means given in the '01 Havard RA  for the spread of BSE and introduction to humans:

Noncompliance with the FDA feed ban, including misfeeding on the farm and the mislabeling of feed and feed products prohibited for consumption by cattle.

Rendering of downer cattle, including cattle that die on the farm.

Inclusion of high-risk tissue, such as brain and spinal cord, in edible products.

"Designate brain and spinal cord from cattle aged 24 months and older and downer cattle regardless of age as SRMs and prohibit their use for human food".....  "Designate intestine from all cattle regardless of age as an SRM and prohibit its use for human food".
"
"Prohibit the use of the vertebral column from downer cattle regardless of age (and consider other populations of cattle, including all aged 24 months and older), as a source material in meat recovery systems that use pressure to separate beef meat or beef products from bone."

"Prohibit the use of cheek meat from cattle aged 24 months and older and downer cattle regardless of age for human food if the meat is not removed before the skull is fragmented or split."

From the section of the additional risk assessment modeling, the following are measures FSI will evaluate with Harvard;s assistance::

• Prohibiting the use of bovine intestine for human food.
• Prohibiting the use of vertebral column as a source material in meat or meat food product recovery systems that use pressure to separate beef meat or beef meat food product from bone for cattle older than 24 months.
• Prohibiting bone-in-beef for human food from cattle older than 24 months.

• Prohibiting the use of brain and spinal cord for human food;
• Prohibiting the use of the head, except the tongue, for human food;
• Prohibiting the use of bovine vertebral column in the production of human food;

Prohibiting the slaughter of cattle older than 24 months of age (other ages, such as younger or older than 24 months, could be considered).

Australia, Bahrain, Chile, China, Costa Rica, Hong Kong, Japan, Jordan, Kuwait, Malaysia, Mexico, Oman, Qatar, Russia, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, and Zambia have notified USDA that they are suspending the     importation of all U.S. beef meat products until further notice.

Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia, South Africa, South Korea, Taiwan, and Venezuela have extended this ban to include all ruminant products.

O'BRIEN: Your chief of staff is a former lobbyist for the industry, and many people have said, well, that relationship is helping to shape policy when it should not. How do you respond to that?

SEC. VENEMAN: Well, again, we're doing what's in the best interest of public health. We are doing everything we can to protect the food supply. And I can tell you that we're making decisions based upon sound science and good public policy, given the circumstances that we are now in.

GAO  I've also thrown together a web page listing GAO documents.  The first listed report is well worth a read: GAO-02-183 "Improvements in the Animal Feed Ban and Other Regulatory Areas Would Strengthen U.S. Prevention Efforts".

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Lastly (and, based on creditability, certianly least), fed. govt. sites which are under direct Bush regime control:

GSA's FirstGov search page

The FFAS BSE site has about the best listing of BSE related govt. documents

FDA  and their Press Release
FDA Mad Cow Disease Information ~ from the FDA, frequently asked questions about the disease, the federal government's emergency response plan, and information on blood and food safety measures

 National Academy Of Science  (a bum site- can't link to info!)

Federal Meat Inspection Act

USDA Inspector General  and it's reports  Judging soley from the titles of the reports, not much there on BSE

USDA's FSIS BSE site

FSIS press release site   A '98 press release "USDA Continues Efforts to Prevent BSE (April 24, 1998) " with the APHIS link:  http://www.aphis.usda.gov/oa/bse/bsepress.html  returns a 404 "file Not Found" error

The FSIS Regulations and Directives Development page

USDA Foreign Agricultural Service GAIN Reports  (Global Agriculture Information Network) provide BSE monitoring resultsand some program status info  for various countries- e.g., for '02 in Belgium-Luxembourg: In 2002, "More than 450,000 animals and 38 cases of BSE were confirmed, compared to 46 cases discovered by 378,000 tests in 2001"..."...since July 2001, all carcasses of cattle older than 24 months which are destined for rendering or which have died on-farm are tested for BSE.   In 377 passive surviellance tests, 5 were positive for BSE.

National Veterinary Services Laboratories

ANot BSE related but interesting- Humane Slaughter- '02 FSIS Backgrounder references: a '98 report on survey , a CSU report ., and another report

The FSIS 11/01 BSE Risk Assement site

04/22/03 Report to Congress on BSE Prevention (PDF)  Appendix (PDF)

FSIS's Q&A Page on BSE

Federal Register On-line via GPO Access- their search engine is a bit quriky

APHIS's photos of mad cows and BSEed brain

Listing of countries that have banned US meat/products/details

11/4/03 Fed. Register notice of proposed rule to allow importation of animals/products from "low risk" areas
(i.e. Canada)

Some USDA rulemaking:

Title:  Risk Reduction Strategies for Potential BSE Pathways Involving  Downer Cattle and Dead Stock of Cattle and Other Species
Docket Type:   Advance notice of proposed rulemaking
Publication Date:  January 21, 2003
CFR Part: 9 CFR Chapter 1
Citation:  68 FR 2703   Text File

Title:  Change in Disease Status of Canada Because of BSE
Docket Type:  Interim rule and request for comments.
Publication Date:  May 29, 2003
CFR Part: 9 CFR Parts 93 and 94
Citation:  68 FR 31939   Text File

Title:  Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy; Minimal  Risk Regions and Importation of Commodities
Docket Type:  Proposed rule.
Publication Date:  November 4, 2003
CFR Part: 9 CFR Parts 94, 94 and 95
Citation:  68 FR 62386   Text File

"U.S. ruminant and ruminant product exports would be placed in jeopardy, if importing countries do not agree that the factors considered and risk mitigations required justify the United States’ categorization of a region as one of minimal risk, that is, provide a sufficient safeguard against the risk of BSE introduction.  Economic effects on U.S. ruminant and ruminant product export markets are analyzed, assuming that many of our major markets could be lost because of the proposed rule and its inclusion of Canada as a minimal-risk category.

AMR is "stands for "Advanced Meat Recovery" , or more technically, "Advanced Meat/Bone Separation and Meat Recovery".  It extracts meat from bones.  The FSIS did a followup to a '02 survey looking into spinal column tissue in meat extracted via this process.  The results were scary- 74% of establishments had meat containing CNS tissues during the initial '02 survey.  On retesting, 35% still had the problem.   The document also indicates that some CNS tissue makes it into human food. and notes that increased testing for CNS tissue started in March '03:

WHO BSE Site  Recommended reading:

- WHO fact sheet on BSE   http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs113/
- WHO fact sheet on Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease     <<GOOD

12/02 FSIS backgrounder on Revised Directive for Advanced Meat Recovery Systems.  Says FSIS will take "routine regulatory samples to verify that spinal cord is not present in AMR".  Some relevant snippets

The directive specifically requires inspection personnel to notify the establishment at the time they take a sample, allowing the establishment to hold the product being tested. If the tests identify the presence of spinal cord tissue then inspection personnel will withhold marks of inspection from the establishment's AMR product and tag the AMR system itself, meaning neither the product nor the equipment can be used until satisfactory corrective action has been taken.

If the establishment has distributed the sampled product then FSIS will request a voluntary recall. If the establishment has not distributed the sampled product, then inspection personnel will verify any action taken to correct the product, such as relabeling the product to meet FSIS regulations. (ed-  can be used for other than cattle feed)

Note that the new USDA regs. announced on 1/9/04 address AMRs

http://www.usda.gov/news/releases/2004/01/0002.htm  Indicates the location of all of the herd-mates of the mad cow are unknown.  Hopefully none were in burgers you've eaten.... or will eat?
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GOP scuttles mad cow law

         A 'mad cow' find puts new emphasis on a call to ban the use of meat from disabled cattle.
         December 26, 2003 Los Angeles Times by Judy Pasternak
         (via http://www.organicconsumers.org/madcow/gop122603.cfm )
 

   The discovery of "mad cow" disease in a Washington state Holstein -- confirmed Thursday by British veterinary pathologists -- has focused new attention on whether animals too disabled to walk to slaughter should be banned from the American food supply.

 The animal that was tested had been flagged in the first place because it had been partially paralyzed, apparently after complications in delivering a calf, said W. Ron DeHaven, the Department of Agriculture's chief veterinarian. The cow came from a dairy farm, where its career as a milk producer was over.

 Animal welfare groups argue that such nonambulatory, or so-called downer, cows are more likely to carry or succumb to infectious diseases. They are calling on Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman to bar them from meat-processing plants.

 The California Cattleman's Assn., taking a position unpopular in the industry, said in November that the group supported prohibiting the slaughter of disabled cattle and encouraged the Department of Agriculture to expand its testing.

 "Anything's on the table at this point," DeHaven said Thursday. Changing the way downers are handled, he added, is among "a number of things we might or might not do."

 The Department of Agriculture noted this year that data from Europe, where "mad cow" disease previously emerged, indicate that downer cattle "have a greater incidence of BSE," or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, the scientific name for "mad cow" disease.

 The first known U.S. case of the disease was announced Tuesday, based on Department of Agriculture tests in Ames, Iowa. Samples were sent to a laboratory in England. Scientists there agreed Thursday with the U.S. analysis of its Iowa test and said they planned to conduct further tests soon.

 Agriculture officials have stressed that they consider the health risk to consumers to be extremely low. The slaughterhouse that processed the diseased cow, Verns Moses Lake Meats of Moses Lake, Wash., voluntarily recalled 10,410 pounds of meat, all that was handled on the day the animal was killed.

 A case of "mad cow" disease surfaced in Canada in May. That animal also was unable to walk on its own. At that point, Consumers Union urged Veneman to "at a minimum" test all downed animals for the infectious disease, which can lead to a different fatal illness in humans.

 Animal rights groups estimate that of the 35 million to 40 million cattle slaughtered each year in the U.S., 130,000 to 190,000 are sent to meatpackers because they've been disabled. The organizations originally began lobbying against using downers for meat because they were concerned about the cruelty of dragging the animals in chains or carrying them on forklifts to be killed. But activists say they quickly began to worry about food safety as well.

California and several other states already ban the use of downers in some slaughterhouses.  The Department of Agriculture decided three years ago to stop buying downer meat for the school lunch program because of concern about bacterial infections.

 But efforts to enact a comprehensive national measure have been derailed in Congress by a few representatives, mostly from cattle states such as Texas.

In fact, on the same day that the diseased Holstein was killed, a Senate-House conference committee tossed out language in the agriculture appropriations bill that would have prevented the use of downer cows for food.

 The Senate had passed the provision. The House had defeated it on a 202-199 vote.

 "If we allow downed animals to be slaughtered, we are playing Russian roulette with the American food supply," said Wayne Pacelle, senior vice president of the Humane Society of the United States.

 But lawmakers arguing against the measure said that keeping downer cows from market would actually erode protections -- because it is only at the slaughterhouse where animals may be inspected for "mad cow" disease.

 Separate bills that focus solely on a downer-cow ban have also been introduced in both the Senate and House.  (ed.: they were scuttled)

 Meanwhile, just last week, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals revived a lawsuit claiming that the government's policy on downer animals does not protect enough against "mad cow" disease. The suit was filed by Farm Sanctuary, which harbors about 1,000 disabled animals in Watkins Glen, N.Y., and Orland, in Northern California. The court, in a 2-1 ruling, said Farm Sanctuary "successfully alleged a credible threat of harm from downed cattle."

 The Agriculture Department rejected Farm Sanctuary's initial request in 1998 to ban downer cows from market. "There is no need to automatically condemn the carcasses," Daniel L. Engeljohn, director of analysis for food inspection regulations at the Department of Agriculture, wrote in a letter to the group's lawyer.

 Food inspectors can distinguish between animals that can't walk because of disease and animals that can't walk because of injury, Engeljohn wrote, adding that barring all downed animals' meat "would have a serious economic impact."

 "If you ban all downer cows from the food chain, now what are you going to do with them?" asked Jim Cullor, a UC Davis professor of veterinary medicine. "Are you going to put them in pet food? Bury them all in a toxic waste dump? You can't burn it because there are air-quality rules."

 A ban is "completely fair to talk about," Cullor said. "But offer some solutions too."

 The California law applies only to state-inspected slaughterhouses, which are generally small specialty operations. "There was a huge argument" about the ban as the measure was debated, said Jim Reynolds, a Visalia veterinarian who chairs the American Assn. of Bovine Practitioners.

 Facilities in California that are inspected by the Department of Agriculture can still accept downer cows.

 Indeed, Farm Sanctuary recently received records of about 18,000 downed animals killed at Central Valley Meat in Hanford during 2000 and 2001, according to Gene Bauston, the group's president. The documents were a response from the Agriculture Department to a Freedom of Information Act request, Bauston said.

"The USDA's latest steps on mad cow disease are pathetic," said John Stauber co-author of the book 'Mad Cow USA'. "Today in the U.S. farmers legally feed billions of pounds of slaughterhouse waste to cattle, and even wean calves on cattle blood protein."

Farmers in the United States routinely feed animal remains, blood and manure -- particularly chicken faeces -- to cattle.

In Europe, where one of every four cows is tested, and Japan, where authorities test 100 percent of cattle bound for human consumption, officials have found a number of cases of mad cow disease in animals that appeared perfectly healthy.

"France, which has only a fraction of the U.S. cattle population, tests more cattle in a single week than the U.S. has tested in a decade," said Michael Greger of the Organic Consumers Association.

Over the past two years, the USDA has tested only about 20,000 cattle, or less than 10 percent of the downer animals, for mad cow disease annually.

"I suspect the recent cases of mad cow disease in the U.S. and Canada are just the tip of an iceberg, one that will continue to grow until dangerous feeding practices are completely banned," said Stauber.

"Three years ago, we submitted a list of recommendations to the U.S. government regarding mad cow disease -- none were implemented," said Simon Chaitowitz of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a Washington-based non-profit group that promotes preventive medicine.

"We believe the USDA has not instituted these protections because many of its top staffers come from the meat and dairy industries, and they care more about protecting cattle industry profits than public safety."

For example, Veneman's chief of staff, Dale Moore, used to be executive director for legislative affairs at the National Cattlemen's Beef Association in Washington, a powerful industry lobby group.

USDA Press Secretary Alisa Harrison, Deputy Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programmes Chuck Lambert and Senior Advisor on Food and Nutrition Issues Elizabeth Johnson all previously worked for the same organisation.

The Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), a body of the USDA, told IPS the agency will be increasing the number of animals it tests. But FSIS Spokesperson Steve Cohen said exactly which animals will be tested has not yet been determined. "At the time the BCE-infected cow was discovered, they (inspectors) were testing many times more cattle than international standards would have indicated for a country that had no BCE,"
he said.

The Plutocrats' Congress Weights in on Mad Cow.

In the current congress, two bills were introduced on "downer cattle"-  the "Downed Animal Protection Act,"- H.R. 2519 in the House and S. 1298 in the Senate.  Both were apparently sent to the graveyard for bills the ruling plutocrats distain- ripublican dominated committees.  Details/links:

The House bill (HR2519):Text

Action and sponsor/cosponser list.  Apparently killed on 6/23/03 via referral to ripublican/agribusiness dominated Ag. Subcommittee on Livestock and Horticulture based on on action being reported on the  Committee Web Site  124 sponsor/cosponsers

Sponsor/cosponser list -  24 sponsor/cosponsers- not suprisingly, very few ripublican are listed....

Action  Introduced on 6/19/2003.  Like the HR, the Senate was apparently killed via referral to ripublican/agribusiness dominated Senate Ag. Subcommittee on Livestock and Horticulture on 6/23/03::

House approprations committee news release doesn't mentions Mad Cow or BSE (liley because they aren't addressed...)
The "full text" of the conference report.  Note that the printer friendly PDF verison is over 3Mb!

HRES 473 RH was apparently the mechanism used by the House to ratify the conference report- i.e. " Waiving points of order against the conference report to accompany the bill (H.R. 2673) making appropriations for Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related...

The voteon the resolution (yea/nay)  Ripublicans 215/1  Demos: 1/188

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Beef rules have been stricter for school lunches  -  January 6, 2004 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
"Late last year, before the mad cow infection here was discovered, Congress ditched  legislation that would have outlawed use of downer cows. The issue is likely to resurface  this year. "

In the 2004 election cycle (i.e., so far...),  the top 4 bribees of the livestock industry are:

Bush, George W (R)	$253,550
Bonilla, Henry (R-TX)	$62,600
Cornyn, John (R-TX)	$17,900
Neugebauer, Randy (R-TX)	$16,900

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And the biggest briber in 2004- The National Cattlemen's Assn.-  $146,941 of which 85% went to ripublicans  (source).  In 2002, they gave $488,760- 83% to ripublicans.   (source)  In 2000, they paid  $515,687 in bribes with (like a broken record), 84% going to ripublicans.

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The 2000 contributions by the livestock industry are also most illuminating.  The top bribee, Shrub himself with over $500,000 in cash.  As a point of refernece, Al Gore got a measly $20,750.  Unsurprisingly, the top 4 bribees were ripublicans.  (source)

Dr. Stanley Prusiner is the scientist who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his discovery of prions, the infectious agents thought to cause bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease. The word Dr. Prusiner uses to describe the efforts of the U.S. government and the cattle industry is "terrible."[4] What are these "stringent protective measures"[5] that the Cattlemen's Association is talking about, and how do they compare to global standards and internationally recognized guidelines?

<a lot snipped>

Conclusion

Since 1996, the World Health Organization has recommended that all countries stop feeding prion infected animals to other animals, yet the U.S. government continues to allow deer infected with chronic wasting disease to be rendered into animal feed,[274] and the industry continues to oppose any proposed change in the law.[275]

Since 1996, the World Health Organization has recommended that all countries test their downer cattle for mad cow disease, yet the U.S. government continues to test but a tiny fraction of this high risk population. The beef industry calls U.S. surveillance "aggressive" and doesn't think more testing is necessary[276]. The world's authority on these diseases just calls it "appalling."[277]

Since 1996, the World Health Organization has recommended that all countries remove beef products containing risky organs like spinal cord from the human food supply. The U.S. government continues to refuse to implement such a measure, and the industry continues to oppose it, referring to such products as nothing but "wholesome."[278]

Since 1996, the World Health Organization has recommended that all countries stop feeding risky cattle organs like brains to all livestock. The U.S. government is considering it. The American Meat Institute, and 14 other industry groups remain vocally opposed.[279]

And, Since 1996, the World Health Organization has recommended that all countries stop feeding any remains of cows to cows, yet the U.S. government still allows dairy farmers to feed calves gallons worth of cow blood and fat collected at the slaughterhouse.[280] Industry representatives continue to actively support this practice.[281]

In 2002, the USDA requested feedback on a number of options for further preventive measures, including a total ban on allowing the brains and spinal cords from downer cattle in the human food supply.[282] The spokesperson for the American Meat Institute explained that the meatpacking industry would take a "significant hit" financially if the USDA enacted such a proposal.[283]

The American Meat Institute explained that spinal cords pose no health risk, "because the U.S. is BSE-free."[284] Despite grossly inadequate surveillance for the disease, when asked if we have BSE in U.S. cattle, the American Meat Institute in 2002 emphatically replied, "No, BSE is a foreign animal disease." They stressed that, "The fact that we share no physical borders with any affected nations has been a key means of protecting our cattle."[285]

Now that mad cow disease has been discovered in North America, the USDA should immediately enact measures to prevent human exposure by issuing an emergency interim rule to ban products that may contain the agent that causes mad cow disease.[286] So far, though, according to an agency spokesperson, the USDA isn't even discussing plans to increase testing for the disease.[287]

Years ago, once mad cow disease started appearing up in Europe, David Byrne, the European Commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection, immediately called for a comprehensive Europe-wide surveillance program to test every cow slaughtered for human consumption over a certain age. Commenting on the program he said, "One of the major lessons I have learned in dealing with BSE is that the political establishment must be fully transparent with the public on the issue. There must be no hidden agendas. No distortions. No false assurances. Transparency, information and open dialogue must guide our actions."[288] The United States could learn from Europe's experience.

Joint Statement From Agriculture Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, Ranking Member Charlie Stenholm, Livestock and  Horticulture Subcommittee Chairman Robin Hayes and Ranking Member Mike Ross Regarding Canada's Announcement of BSE Investigation

We have been in contact with the Department of Agriculture and Canadian officials regarding this investigation. They are keeping us  apprised of the situation.

USDA is placing Canada under BSE restriction guidelines, and has announced that the U.S. will cease importing any ruminants or ruminant  products from Canada at this time. According to Canadian officials, this isolated case of BSE did not enter into the food or mammalian feed  supply.

Both countries have developed and have in place safeguards designed to prevent the spread of the disease in the event of an isolated case  such as today's announcement. As a result of these preventive actions the Canadian government has expressed confidence in their  ability to contain this disease and trace its origin.

There has never been a recorded case of BSE in the United States and the actions taken by the USDA this afternoon will help to further protect the U.S. cattle herd from any potential spread of this disease across our border.
(source)

1. Bills enacted into law
Public Law 107–9 (S. 700)
To establish a Federal interagency task force for the purpose of coordinating actions to prevent the outbreak of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (commonly known as ‘‘mad cow disease’’) and foot-and mouth disease in the United States (approved May 24, 2001). This Act known as the ‘‘Animal Disease Risk Assessment, Pre-vention, and Control Act of 2001’’ directs the Secretary of Agri-culture to submit a preliminary report to specified congressional committees including the Committee on Agriculture, concerning: (1) interagency measures to assess, prevent, and control the spread of foot and mouth disease and bovine spongiform encephalophy (mad cow disease) in the United States; (2) related Federal information sources available to the public; and (3) the need for any additional legislative authority or product bans. Directs the Secretary, in consultation with governmental and pri-vae sector parties, to submit a final report to such committees that discusses such diseases: economic impacts, public and animal health risks, and related legislative, Federal agency, and product recommendations.

Note. ‘‘Similar or identical bills, and bills having reference to each other, are indicated by
the number in parenthesis.

The house subcommittee on livestock is apparently dead on Mad Cow as well as other issues judging by their hearings web site.

 Mr. STENHOLM. The 2002 farm bill prohibits the Secretary from using a mandatory identification system to verify country of origin. In light of the grave concerns caused by a single case of BSE in one Canadian cow, is a mandatory system needed in the United States?
 Mr. LAMBERT. USDA and AFIS, along with several State Government representatives and industry have been working on an animal ID program, and there is a program in place that is in the process of being developed and implemented.

Why wasn't feeding cow parts to otehr cows not banned when the feed labeling was required in '97

Preliminary and final reports on Mad Cow required by Public Law 107–9 (S. 700) (107th congress)

From the 1998 piece  One Hundred Percent All Beef Baloney: Lessons from the Oprah Trial:

"...the cattle industry adopted a voluntary ban on 'recycling' felled cattle as feed on March
29, 1996"; <snip>  As we document in Mad Cow   USA, however, there is no reason to believe that the
"voluntary ban" had any impact whatsoever on industry feeding practices. Aside from the fact that a "voluntary
ban" is a contradiction in terms, Mad Cow USA quotes agricultural extension agents and feed salesmen who
confirm that the practice of feeding rendered cattle back to cattle continued, and may even have increased, after
the voluntary ban was declared.

..the infectious agent that causes mad cow disease is extraordinarily resistant to high
temperatures and is capable of remaining infective even when heated to 720 degrees fahrenheit--more than twice
the temperature used to "cook" rendered animal feed. Its ability to survive the rendering process is precisely what
enabled mad cow disease to grow to epidemic levels in the British cattle population.

Or consider the conclusions of the Food and Drug Administration, which appeared nine months after the
Oprah show, when FDA finally got around to publishing "proposed regulations" banning the practice of feeding
cattle back to cattle.  "The data and information raise concern that BSE
could occur in cattle in the United States," the FDA wrote, "and that if BSE does appear in this country, the causative
agent could be transmitted and amplified through the feeding of processed ruminant protein to cattle, and could
result in an epidemic."

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If you ask him, he will suggest that we are looking at the possibility of a terrible epidemic. "Do the math," he says. "Any scientist will tell you that one mad cow tells you there are thousands more."  He says this quietly. The facts, he believes, will ultimately speak for themselves

In 1998, a jury said that Lyman and Winfrey were not liable, but a group of livestock owners filed a second suit. The case dragged on for four years. Finally, a U.S. District Court judge laid the matter to rest. Lyman had not said anything knowingly false about the meat industry, the judge determined. "Every word Howard Lyman said was true," she wrote in her 2002 decision.

"...was director of public relations for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, the beef industry's largest trade group, where she battled government food safety efforts, criticized Oprah Winfrey for raising health questions about American hamburgers, and sent out press releases with titles like "Mad Cow Disease Not a Problem in the U.S."

"...her effortless transition from the cattlemen's lobby to the Agriculture Department is a fine symbol of all that is wrong with America's food safety system.  Right now you'd have a hard time finding a federal agency more completely dominated by the industry it was created to regulate.    Dale Moore, Ms. Veneman's chief of staff, was previously the chief lobbyist for the cattlemen's association. Other veterans of
that group have high-ranking jobs at the department, as do former meat-packing executives and a former president of the National Pork Producers Council.
<snip>
The Agriculture Department has a dual, often contradictory mandate: to promote the sale of meat on behalf of American producers and to guarantee that American meat is safe on behalf of consumers. For too long the emphasis has been on commerce, at the expense of safety. The safeguards against mad cow that Ms. Veneman announced on Tuesday -- including the elimination of "downer cattle" (cows that cannot walk) from the food chain, the removal of high-risk material like spinal cords from meat processing, the promise to introduce a system to trace cattle back to the ranch -- have long been demanded by consumer groups. Their belated introduction seems to have been largely motivated by the desire to have foreign countries lift restrictions on American beef imports.

Worse, on Wednesday Ms. Veneman ruled out the the most important step to protect Americans from mad cow disease: a large-scale program to test the nation's cattle for bovine spongiform encephalopathy.

After detailing the failures of the British and Japanese governments, this: "instead of learning from the mistakes of other countries, America now seems to be repeating them".  And then:

A 2001 study by the Government Accounting Office found that one-fifth of American feed and rendering companies that handle prohibited material had no systems in place to prevent the contamination of cattle feed. According to the report, more than a quarter of feed manufacturers in Colorado, one of the top beef-producing states, were not even aware of the F.D.A. measures to prevent mad cow disease, four years after their introduction.

Indeed, 14 years after Britain announced its ban on feeding cattle proteins to cattle, the Food and Drug Administration still did not have a complete listing of the American companies rendering cattle and manufacturing cattle feed.

Instead of testing American cattle, the government has heavily relied on work by the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis to determine how much of a threat mad cow disease poses to the United States. For the past week the Agriculture Department has emphasized the reassuring findings of these Harvard studies, but a closer examination of them is not comforting. Although thorough and well intended, they are based on computer models of how mad cow disease might spread. Their accuracy is dependent on their underlying assumptions. "Our model is not amenable to formal validation," says the Harvard group in its main report, "because there are no controlled experiments in which the introduction and consequences of B.S.E. introduction to a country has been monitored and measured."

Ban on 'downers' could change way cattle are raised  January 2, 2004 USA TODAY by Elizabeth Weise:

In an effort to safeguard the beef supply against mad cow disease, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) on Tuesday announced an immediate halt to the practice of slaughtering for human consumption any sick or injured cows that cannot walk.

Chandler Keys of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association says the 150,000 to 200,000 downers a year are a fraction of the 35 million U.S. cattle slaughtered each year.
An estimated 3% to 4% of beef cattle are downers. But research in Wisconsin and Minnesota in 2003 found that 23% of dairy cattle were lame.

One positive effect of the ban is that it might reduce other illnesses as well. A USDA study published in August found that downer cows had three  times more of the deadly bacterium E. coli 015H7 than other cows.
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'Mad Cow' Risk in US Tiny but Real, Experts Say  Gaps in food quality rules are raising questions.
February 20, 2001 in the Los Angeles Times - a nice article pointing to cattle feed as a likely source for spreading BSE.  Notes a Purina mix up that sent feed rendered from cows to market.  1,222 cows  bought and taken out of the food chain by Purina.  Purina stopped using meat and bone meal in all feed, However, the article states, "some of the nation's largest feed companies, such as Land O'Lakes Farmland Feed and Cargill, still use meat and bone meal in feeds for animals other than cows."  Also:

Feed mills. If BSE does exist undiagnosed somewhere in the nation's cattle or dairy herds, there's a chance
                that it could be spread by mix-ups at feed mills, some of which have been lax in following regulations aimed at
                stopping BSE. The disease was spread in Europe through contaminated animal feed.
<snip>
And not all of them are using it responsibly, according to a report issued last month by the FDA. In its
                inspections of more than 1,000 U.S. feed mills, the FDA found that 20% did not have the proper precautionary
                statements on their labels. And 9% did not have a system in place to prevent commingling of cattle feed with
                feed meant for other animals. The report did not identify the violators.

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5/03 FDA notice of deviations at Maryville TN ag. distributor
From: http://www.vegsource.com/talk/lyman/messages/35.html
Orginal likely at: http://www.fda.gov/foi/warning_letters/g4056d.htm

"U.S. Food and Drug Administration investigator on February 13, 2003, found significant deviations from the requirements set forth in Title 21, Code of Federal Regulations (21 CFR.), Part 589.2000 - Animal Proteins Prohibited in Ruminant Feed. "

Our investigation found the following violations of 21 C.F.R. 589.2000:

1. Failure to separate the receipt, processing, and storage of products containing prohibited material from products not containing prohibited material [21 C.F.R. 589.2000(e)(1)(iv)];

2. Failure to establish written procedures, including clean-out and flushing procedures, to avoid commingling and cross-contamination of common equipment [21 C.F.R. 589.2000(e)(1)(iii)(B)];

3. Failure to maintain records sufficient to track prohibited materials throughout the receipt, processing, and distribution of your products [21 C.F.R. 589.2000(c)(1)(ii)];

4. Failure to provide for measures to avoid commingling or cross-contamination of feeds intended for ruminants and feeds intended for nonruminants that may contain prohibited materials [21 C.F.R. 589.2000(c)(1)(iii)]. Specifically, our investigation found that the ruminant product 10% Beef Conditioned was formulated primarily with screenings and fines derived from previously manufactured non-ruminant products, Premium Rooster Kicker in particular, that contain or may contain prohibited material. Such deviations cause the ruminant product 10% Beef Conditioner being manufactured at this facility to be adulterated within the meaning of Sections 402(a)(2)(C) and 402(a)(4) of the Act;

5. Failure to label your non-ruminant products with the required cautionary statement Do not Feed to Cattle or Other Ruminants [21 C.F.R. 589.2000(c)(1)(ii)]. Our investigation specifically found that dog food containing prohibited material was added as an ingredient to your product Premium Rooster Kicker. The failure of these feeds to bear the required BSE warning statement causes them to be misbranded within the meaning of Section 403(f) of the Act.

The above is not intended to be an all-inclusive list of deviations from the regulations.

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Alton Brown, star of "Good Eats" weighs in on Mad Cow.  Snippets from a post of 12/26/03:

That’s right, Mad Cow disease isn’t the beef industry’s fault, it’s not the USDA’s fault, and it’s surely not the cattles’ fault. It’s our fault.

That’s right…you and I are to blame for the fact that hundreds if not thousands of animals will have to be destroyed because of the threat of
BSE. We are to blame because our culture has come to value two qualities above all else: “cheap”, and “more”. How else can you explain
the cancerous creep of Wal-Marts across our landscape, or the ever swelling American waistline?

You think wanting “more” for “less” is just good sense? Well let me tell you what you get: more of less. By demanding the cheapest beef (and food in general) we announce to all that we don’t place much value on our bodies, or the bodies of our children. We don’t value the pleasure of flavor, and we don’t value life. If we placed a little value on the life of the animal who’s dying for our dinner, maybe we wouldn’t demand that it be cheapest, and in many cases lowest quality, meat on Earth. Maybe, just maybe if we ate beef once or even twice a week rather than making daily pilgrimages through the fast food, drive thru, biggie-size feed lot, we’d be able to afford quality meet from an animal that was raised on honest to goodness grass.

I imagine that this newest mad cow threat is going to make a lot of folks angry. I just hope it makes them angry enough to vote, not in elections which may or not be useless, but with money. Believe me, every dime you spend is a vote…a statement of what you believe in and what you value; which lines you’ll cross and which ones you won’t. Me, heck even if I didn’t have a taste bud in my head I wouldn’t want anyone feeding ground up cow brains to beef cattle on my behalf anymore than I’d want to set one foot in a Wal-Mart.

Some things are more valuable than “cheap” and “plentiful”.

Put your money where your mind is.

I’m sorry that I spoke of feeding cows to cows in present terms. That of course has been outlawed here in the states as well as in Canada since ’97. Our current problem stems from the fact that there are still cows out there that were born before that moratorium. My real problem is with the bigger picture. If legislation is the only thing to prevent cattle from being fed to cattle, what else might someone out there be dreaming up as a replacement that current legislation doesn’t cover? If we have to treat cattle like garbage disposals in order to get beef prices down low enough for us to buy it… what does that say about us?

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AMR
USDA action on AMR systems (link)

A 3/97 FSIS backgrounder on a survey of AMR systems.  It states "...spinal cord was present in a small percentage of samples from AMR systems, the Agency announced the preparation of a directive to define inspection tasks to help ensure that spinal cord does not appear in products produced with AMR systems"   The 2/97 FSIS issued directive 7160.2 states stuff containing spinal cord can't be labeled meat and that the spinal colum be removed before AMRing the vertabal column.  Gives history of ARM- proposed reg. allowing product to be called "meat" on 3/3/94, final reg published 12/6/94 with a 1/5/95 eff. date.  When proposed, AMR was said to remove 1 to 1-1/2 pounds more beef from a carcass than hand deboning operations and have a  $30B economic benefit in first year.  Apparently calcium in the product was a big consumer group concern.  In '96 they complained about spinal cord, other CSN and marrow.  On 11/6/96, FSIS asked for comments via the Fed. Register and announced a survey to compare AMR with hand-deboned product.  The survey results were announced on 2/21/97.  From 300 samples, "Spinal cord and central nervous tissue were found in two samples from AMR systems and in none of the hand deboned samples. To  investigate further, a subset of AMR systems samples was examined and found to contain spinal cord."  Due to BSE concerns It noted "....FSIS convened a group of experts to determine the human risk of BSE from current meat processing practices.". and coucluded with "...the presence of spinal cord in meat is not expected and cannot be allowed in product produced through AMR systems".
 

FSIS proposed AMR new rule on 4/13/98 in the Federal Register- vol 63, pg 17959-17966

FSIS directive 7160.3 of 12/2/02 (I've lost the link....)
"This directive provides inspection program personnel with new instructions for Office of Public Health and Science (OPHS)directed sampling of boneless comminuted beef produced from an advanced meat recovery (AMR)system in which vertebral column components are used,and on the actions inspection program personnel will take if such product contains spinal cord"   States that "meat" can't contail spinal cord and if it enters commerce, they will request a recall.  Details enforcement actions if a sample has spinal cord.   Note that other nerve tissue (esp. DGR) is NOT covered.  There's also a related 12/02 FSIS backgrounder.   It notes that "In January 1995, USDA’s definition of meat was amended to include product from advanced meat/bone separation systems."

FSIS Notice 18-03 of 5/27/03.  Notes a previous notice on the subject was to expire and t