Bill To Stop Use Of Downer
Cows In Food Chain Stopped
Congress Scuttled Meat Protection Measure
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
12-26-03
WASHINGTON -- Legislation to keep meat from downed animals off American kitchen tables was scuttled - for the second time in as many years - as Congress labored unsuccessfully earlier this month to pass a catchall agency spending bill.
Now, in the wake of the apparent discovery of the first mad-cow case in the United States, the author of the House version of the cattle provision wants to press the issue anew when Congress returns Jan. 20 from its winter recess. The massive, $373 billion spending bill covering several government agencies is still pending in the Senate.
"I said on the floor of the House that you will rue the day that because of the greed of the industry to make a few extra pennies from 130,000 head, the industry would sacrifice the safety of the American people," said Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-N.Y., chief House sponsor. "It's so pound foolish."
The provision dealing with downed cattle didn't even make it into the compromise version of the legislation that House and Senate conferees brought before Congress late in the year.
The Agriculture Department estimates that 130,000 downed animals that are too injured or sick to stand or walk unassisted are slaughtered every year. About 36 million cows are slaughtered each year in the United States.
The provision, which started through the legislative process as an amendment to an agriculture spending bill, would have effectively prohibited the sale of livestock too sick or injured to stand or walk unassisted.
The agricultural spending bill passed - with the provision intact - on a Senate voice vote in November after failing by three votes in the House in July. But congressional negotiators did not include it in the broader, $373 billion omnibus spending bill that passed the House this month and which is still awaiting a vote in the Senate.
Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., a negotiator who voted for the measure in the House, said Democratic negotiators never had a chance to fight for the proposal.
*************"The Republicans, the leadership, shut off the conference, they closed it down, and this is one of a number of provisions which were handled in a backroom deal without the Democrats there and with only the Republican leadership," said Hinchey.***********************
Lawmakers and congressional aides said they consider it very unlikely that Congress would reopen the multibillion-dollar bill to deal with the issue. "I can't imagine that it would be," Rep. Henry Bonilla, R-Texas, an opponent of the measure, said.
A day after the government announced the first apparent case of mad cow disease in the United States - in a downed animal - lawmakers and interest groups on both sides of the issue said they had been vindicated.
The Humane Society of the United States has warned repeatedly that if the meat from a lone cow with the brain-wasting disease found its way into the food supply, other countries would cut off U.S. beef imports and consumer confidence would be shaken. "We are already seeing that play out," said Humane Society Vice President Wayne Pacelle. Japan, Taiwan and Mexico, the three largest importers, banned U.S. beef.
But opponents of the legislation said USDA inspectors might never have discovered the apparent presence of the disease, formally known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, had Ackerman's legislation been in place.
Banning the sale of downed animals would prevent USDA inspectors from detecting possible cases because the animals would never reach the slaughterhouse for inspection, they said.
"The fact that it was caught is the significant thing for the consumer," said Rep. Charles Stenholm, D-Texas, the senior Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee. Stenholm has argued that federal inspectors are in the best position to keep sick animals, as opposed to those that can't walk but are otherwise healthy, out of the food chain.
Agriculture officials also have insisted that the food supply is safe because the animal parts most at risk of carrying the disease, the brain and spinal column, had been removed. "Muscle cuts of meat have almost no risk," Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman said.
In the House, most Republicans as well as conservative and farm-state Democrats opposed the measure.
Both chambers passed similar provisions in their versions of the 2002 farm bill, but negotiators stripped the measure from the final version of that bill.
In both years, the National Milk Producers Federation lobbied successfully against the provision.
"If you don't allow movement off the farm, then you miss the opportunity to diagnose the problem," said Chris Galen, spokesman for the federation.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apwashington_story.asp?category=1153&slug=Mad%20Cow%20Congress
From Patricia Doyle, PhD
12-26-03
Note - This lie is on a par with the outrageous contention that the blood supply
is 'safe'. The blood supply is a mega-billion dollar profit mill which uses human
beings...coming and going. The blood supply is NOT safe. - ed
I am sick and tired of being told that the US food supply is 'safe.' It is NOT.
Apparently, our 'government' cannot even trace the origin of the BSE-infected cow.
I am sure they are desperately trying to place the origin of the infected cow as OUTSIDE the US.
Well, if that is true and the cow originated outside the US in BSE endemic country, then laws were violated regarding the importation of beef from BSE infected country. More then likely, they seek to blame Canada. The cow was born before Canada had discovered infected BSE cattle.
Next, I am appalled that cows that cannot stand or walk are sent to slaughterhouse for beef. This is unacceptable, not even for animal consumption. UNACCEPTABLE!
I am sure they are also deparately trying to trace the infected beef products. Another appalling factor in this case is the fact that the USDA keeps telling us how 'safe' our food supply is. This is NOT true. We don't test every cow and we use downer cows. How safe is the supply? NOT SAFE at all.
Note - keep in mind another quaint practice: putting blood and byproducts from cattle...downer and 'regular'...in common garden and vegetable FERTILIZERS. And, yes, prions can be uptaken by plants
and remain IN the plants with ease. - ed
Next, we have had mad cow disease in the US since and around the time that animal mutilations began in the 1960s (see Jeff's article 'Who's Watching...'). We have been lied to about Chronic Wasting Disease and about animal, even human mutilations. Do the mutilations pertain to the discovery or search for mad cow in the US? You bet they do.
I am not buying either premise, i.e. little green men are mutilating humans and livestock as experimentation, or that mutilations do not exist. They are happening...and I think that "someone," whether it is because a company like Monsanto searching for "irregularities" in livestock genetic makeup due to recombinent synthetic hormones or growth hormones, or because of governmental search for genetic changes, never the less, animal mutilations are occuring. Interestingly, the first mutilation occured in the same area as the first Chronic Wasting Disease deer. Coincidence? I don't buy coincidence either.
Something very wrong has been ongoing and "someone" knew about for over 40 years. Animal mutilations have increased dramatically in South America and my guess is that we shall hear of BSE infected animals there.
I think that it is a disgrace that the public is put at risk, and then lied to. Once and for all, "the food supply is NOT safe.
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