MAD COW NEWS

'We Were Lucky About One Thing' Company Owner Says Meat All Went to Same Customer

There was homemade Christmas fudge in the room where butchers pull on their rubber boots. And just past a sign that said, "Beef. It's What's For Dinner," there were dozens of Christmas cards from longtime customers of Vern's Moses Lake Meats.

But every last drop of holiday cheer on this Christmas Eve had been drained out of this old one-story slaughterhouse on the southwestern edge of Moses Lake, a farm town in eastern Washington's semi-desert country. It was here that the first cow in the United States to test positive for mad cow disease was slaughtered two weeks ago.

"I have so much nervous energy I prefer to stand," said Tom Ellestad, who, with his older brother Larry, runs the meat company where the Holstein cow was slaughtered.

Pacing on the walkway in front of the faded red, concrete-block slaughterhouse that his father bought 33 years ago, Tom Ellestad said he learned less than 24 hours ago that the infected cow had been butchered here...

Meat Industry Feels Fallout; Groceries Offer Assurances

The economic fallout from the discovery of a single case of presumed mad cow disease in Washington state continued yesterday, as the shares of food-related companies tumbled, groceries and restaurants rushed to reassure anxious customers, and the beef export industry faced a ban on shipments.

At the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, trading in cattle futures locked up immediately after the market opened when prices fell as much as allowed in a single day. More declines are expected in trading tomorrow, and exchange spokesman John Holden said the market has expanded the allowable price drops, "hopefully to find a price at which they're willing to trade."

The price for 100 pounds of live cattle fell $1.50 yesterday on the Chicago exchange, to close at $90.85. The price will be allowed to fall an additional $3 on Friday and $5 on Monday.

The ban on U.S. beef imports by several countries sent a shudder through the meat industry. "It's not insignificant," said James H. Hodges, president of the American Meat Institute Foundation, during a media briefing. Last year about $3.6 billion in American beef was shipped overseas...

Inspection Practices Examined, Using Meat From 'Downers' Decried

When a cow or steer cannot walk to slaughter, it is called a "downer." Some have broken legs, while others may have been trampled in the railroad car on the way to the stockyards. Still others, however, are sick, and at least one -- slaughtered Dec. 9 in Washington state -- was infected with mad cow disease, according to the Department of Agriculture.

The case, the first reported in the United States, has triggered a reappraisal of the inspection procedures that the Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration use to regulate meat processing from the slaughterhouse to the rendering plants that transform an animal's last remains into meat and bone meal feed.

For years, consumer groups and some lawmakers have complained about the practice of slaughtering downers. This year, a provision in the Senate's Agriculture appropriations bill to ban the practice was removed from the final version of the legislation, which still awaits action by the Senate...