Editorial: Mad cow/Second case, new concerns
July 4, 2005 ED0704A
In December 2003, when authorities discovered the first American case of mad cow disease, the U.S. Department of Agriculture roused itself from a long torpor and announced an aggressive, much-overdue set of livestock safety protocols. But last month, when the nation's second case came to light, it became clear that the USDA has spent much of the last 18 months in the same foot-dragging and backsliding that have long characterized its approach to the cattle industry. Mike Johanns, the new agriculture secretary, should use the occasion to demand the sort of enforcement that his agency has promised but never entirely delivered.
It should be said that, even now, the risk to consumers from bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) seems extremely low. The infected cow discovered in Texas this past November was pulled from the slaughter line, as mandated by federal rules, and never entered the nation's food supply. More broadly, most beef cattle raised for human consumption are fed on grass, hay and corn -- not the feed supplements that can transmit BSE -- and are slaughtered at an age before the disease seems to develop.
Nevertheless, details from the Texas episode show that the USDA's testing regimen, even though expanded since 2003, is inadequate to restore public confidence in American beef and has already lost the confidence of lucrative and valued export customers.
Here's the chronology: In November the USDA tested a sample of brain tissue from a dead cow in Texas suspected of having mad cow disease. Using a technique it calls "the gold standard" of testing, it announced a negative result. Some months later, the department's inspector general, a tough-minded regulator named Phyllis Fong, ordered a second test on the tissue. When it came back positive, she sent the sample to a laboratory in Weybridge, England, regarded as the world's best. That test, too, came back positive. Only then, in announcing the English finding late last month, did Johanns acknowledge that the USDA had conducted a second test of its own back in November and that this test, too, had showed abnormalities in the Texas animal.
This sequence of events suggests woeful neglect at the USDA. It clung to the "gold standard" test even though European and Japanese experts have recommended better techniques and even after a second internal test challenged the first one. In fact, the USDA might never have sought outside tests on the Texas animal if not for Fong's intervention. And if the British test had not come back positive, it appears that USDA scientists would never have disclosed their own positive test result to the public or to the department's top regulators.
Sadly, the testing episode seems indicative of a pattern of government backsliding since 2003. After the first mad-cow case, Ann Veneman, then the USDA secretary, promised to ban the slaughter of "downers," or cattle that can't walk at the slaughterhouse, because they have a statistically higher incidence of BSE. Yet the USDA never finalized that ban and has since hinted at relaxing it. Veneman also promised to bar from cattle feed "specified risk materials" -- brains, spinal cords and other cattle parts known to carry BSE agents -- but then omitted several risky items identified by her own panel of international experts. Finally, federal authorities promised tighter limits on feeding cattle protein to other livestock, including calves and poultry, but never followed through. It's time for Johanns to make good on all those promises, in addition to the tougher testing protocols he announced recently.
In the late 1980s and 1990s, nearly 150 people in Britain died from the human variant of BSE, even though British officials had insisted for years that the nation's beef supply was perfectly safe. It would be horrible, indeed inexcusable, if history repeated itself on this side of the Atlantic.
July 4, 2005 ED0704A
In December 2003, when authorities discovered the first American case of mad cow disease, the U.S. Department of Agriculture roused itself from a long torpor and announced an aggressive, much-overdue set of livestock safety protocols. But last month, when the nation's second case came to light, it became clear that the USDA has spent much of the last 18 months in the same foot-dragging and backsliding that have long characterized its approach to the cattle industry. Mike Johanns, the new agriculture secretary, should use the occasion to demand the sort of enforcement that his agency has promised but never entirely delivered.
It should be said that, even now, the risk to consumers from bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) seems extremely low. The infected cow discovered in Texas this past November was pulled from the slaughter line, as mandated by federal rules, and never entered the nation's food supply. More broadly, most beef cattle raised for human consumption are fed on grass, hay and corn -- not the feed supplements that can transmit BSE -- and are slaughtered at an age before the disease seems to develop.
Nevertheless, details from the Texas episode show that the USDA's testing regimen, even though expanded since 2003, is inadequate to restore public confidence in American beef and has already lost the confidence of lucrative and valued export customers.
Here's the chronology: In November the USDA tested a sample of brain tissue from a dead cow in Texas suspected of having mad cow disease. Using a technique it calls "the gold standard" of testing, it announced a negative result. Some months later, the department's inspector general, a tough-minded regulator named Phyllis Fong, ordered a second test on the tissue. When it came back positive, she sent the sample to a laboratory in Weybridge, England, regarded as the world's best. That test, too, came back positive. Only then, in announcing the English finding late last month, did Johanns acknowledge that the USDA had conducted a second test of its own back in November and that this test, too, had showed abnormalities in the Texas animal.
This sequence of events suggests woeful neglect at the USDA. It clung to the "gold standard" test even though European and Japanese experts have recommended better techniques and even after a second internal test challenged the first one. In fact, the USDA might never have sought outside tests on the Texas animal if not for Fong's intervention. And if the British test had not come back positive, it appears that USDA scientists would never have disclosed their own positive test result to the public or to the department's top regulators.
Sadly, the testing episode seems indicative of a pattern of government backsliding since 2003. After the first mad-cow case, Ann Veneman, then the USDA secretary, promised to ban the slaughter of "downers," or cattle that can't walk at the slaughterhouse, because they have a statistically higher incidence of BSE. Yet the USDA never finalized that ban and has since hinted at relaxing it. Veneman also promised to bar from cattle feed "specified risk materials" -- brains, spinal cords and other cattle parts known to carry BSE agents -- but then omitted several risky items identified by her own panel of international experts. Finally, federal authorities promised tighter limits on feeding cattle protein to other livestock, including calves and poultry, but never followed through. It's time for Johanns to make good on all those promises, in addition to the tougher testing protocols he announced recently.
In the late 1980s and 1990s, nearly 150 people in Britain died from the human variant of BSE, even though British officials had insisted for years that the nation's beef supply was perfectly safe. It would be horrible, indeed inexcusable, if history repeated itself on this side of the Atlantic.
