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The cattleman-turned vegetarian whose 1996 interview with Oprah Winfrey landed him and the famous talk-show host in court is still raising concerns about beef.
Howard Lyman, known as the Mad Cowboy, was a guest on the Oprah Winfrey Show when he discussed the subject of mad cow disease and the then-legal practice of allowing processed cattle to be used as protein in cattle feed. A group of Texas cattlemen tried, and failed, to sue Lyman and Winfrey over remarks made during the show.
At one time, Lyman owned a large Montana ranch and was a member of the Montana Stockmen's Association. The retired stockman is now a vegetarian.
"I lived south of Great Falls, Montana, and at one time I had over 7,000 head of cattle, 12,000 acres of cropland and had 30 employees," he said.
"I think you should be careful eating beef anywhere. Anything that is not organically certified, I think is like playing Russian Roulette," he said from his home in Washington state. "If the beef was certified organic I wouldn't necessarily have to know the person who produced it, but I would never buy beef if I did not know how the animals were raised. Now, I don't eat anything that has a face, a liver, or a mother."
Lyman left the beef industry after 20 years of operating his feedlot. He sold his ranch and started working for farmers in financial trouble. This led to working for the Montana Farmers Union and from there to Washington, D.C., as a lobbyist for the National Farmers Union.
How could a former cattle rancher speak out against his own industry?
"Before they confirmed mad cow disease in North America, they thought I was the one with holes in my brain. After mad cow disease was confirmed, you would be surprised at how much smarter they thought I had become."
Lyman speaks out against feeding animal byproducts to animals . "They are still doing it here in the U.S.," he said.
Lyman was asked, "When you were a beef producer in Montana did you ever see any cattle that you suspected may have had BSE?"
"Oh sure, I think everybody that has been in the business for any length of time would see an animal that would make you wonder about that ... and you shoot, shovel, and shut-up," he said. "Any beef producer, whether they are north or south of the border, they are not going to call up a health official and ask them to test another animal . It is just economic suicide if you were to do that. I don't blame those guys a bit. Are you going to lose everything you worked a lifetime for when even the government won't even test every animal ?" Lyman asked.
In Canada, officials say 87,000 cattle have been tested for BSE, or mad cow disease, since the discovery of the disease in an Alberta cow in 2003, with a surveillance program that targets cattle where the disease would most likely be found, including "downer" cattle that can't walk and diseased or distressed cattle. Testing has also been ramped up in the U.S. in the wake of BSE discoveries there.
To prevent the transmission of BSE, a ban has been in place in both Canada in the U.S. since 1997 that prevents parts of cattle and other ruminant animals from being used in cattle feed. Canadian officials are also mulling further restrictions that would extend to cattle protein used in feed for other types of animals .
As a further safeguard to public health, "specified risk materials" such as brains -- the cattle tissues that, in BSE-infected cattle, have been shown to contain the infective agent for BSE -- also must now be removed at slaughter.
When asked about Montana and the R-CALF movement, Lyman chuckled that many of the ranchers belonging to R-CALF -- a group that has tried to permanently block cattle trade with Canada since the discovery of BSE in Alberta in 2003 -- were his friends.
"If you are looking at the economics of the issue, any producer in the United States doesn't want to see Canadian beef come down any more than a Canadian rancher wants to see American beef come up," said Lyman.
"I personally believe that the beef in Canada is probably safer than beef in the United States because I don't think the producers in Canada ever got on the bandwagon of feeding cows back to cows at the high rate that they did in the U.S.," Lyman said.