MAD COW DISEASE

U.S. accused of covering up mad cow cases The United States has covered up cases of mad cow disease in the past eight years, a former U.S. agriculture inspector said Tuesday at a House of Commons committee. Leslie Friedlander repeated a claim he has made before that cases of bovine spongiform encephalopathy surfaced in the U.S. long before the disease showed up in Canada, devastating this country's beef industry. Friedlander, who was fired from his job as head of inspections at a meat-packing plant in Philadelphia in 1995 after criticizing what he called unsafe practices, says he's willing to take a lie detector test to prove he is telling the truth. Part of the answer could be in a slaughterhouse in Oriskany Falls, N.Y., which eight years ago may have become the home of the first American case of mad cow. Bobby Godfrey, who worked at the plant, remembers a cow that arrived one day. "I thought it was a mad dog, to tell you the truth," he told CBC's Investigative Unit. "Didn't know what the hell it was. Never seen a cow act like that in all the cows I saw go through there. There was definitely something wrong with it." The suspect cow, which was recorded on video obtained by CBC News, was suspected of being the first American case of BSE. Dr. Masuo Doi was the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) veterinarian in charge of investigating the cow. "Me and my vet, including our inspector, they thought it [the cow] was quite different. They thought it was the BSE," he said. Doi, who recently retired from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, says he's haunted by fears the right tests were not done and that the case was not properly investigated by his own department. With questions about the first cow still lingering, three months later at the same meat plant there was a second American cow with suspicious symptoms. The second cow's brain was sent for testing and officials were told verbally the tests were negative. Doi made repeated requests for documentary proof of the negative tests. To this day, he's seen nothing. "How many are buried?" he wonders. "Can you really trust our inspection [system?]....
Australian company in Canadian BSE case An Australian stockfeed company has become embroiled in the fallout from the mad cow disease outbreak in North America. Ridley Corporation's subsidiary in Canada is being sued over allegations it allowed ruminant animal products into feed which allegedly caused that country's outbreak. Cattle farmers have launched a $CAN7 billion lawsuit against both the company and the Canadian Government for allegedly bungling the containment of the disease. No one from Ridley Corporation was available for interview, but in a statement the company says it will strenuously defend the court action....
Canadian Cattlemen Organization Says To Sue US Cattle Group A group of Canadian cattle producers is planning to sue the U.S. producer group R-CALF United Stockgrowers of America, alleging damages caused by its efforts to keep the U.S. border closed to all Canadian cattle. A spokesman for R-CALF USA dismissed the threatened suit, calling it a low priority for his group. Morrison maintains that Canadian cattle producers are very upset with R-CALF USA, the border closing and the lack of accuracy in some of the statements made by the producers' group. They are particularly incensed with the whole premise that Canadian cattle aren't safe, according to Morrison. Morrison said it could be argued that Canadian cattle and beef are safer than those in the U.S. because his country has a mandatory identification and tagging system already in place while the U.S. is still formulating its plan. In order to put together its class-action suit against R-CALF USA, Morrison said Fair Market Beef wanted to sign up 1,000 cattle producers who had lost money since March 7. This date was chosen because this was when the USDA would have opened the border if it hadn't been for the injunction from Judge Cebull, he said....
U.S. Wants More Easing of Japan Beef Test Rules The United States urged Japan on Tuesday to exclude beef cattle under the age of 30 months from testing for mad cow disease, the latest sign of U.S. pressure on Japan to ease its testing standards, Kyodo news agency said. Under intense pressure, Japan moved a step closer to easing a ban on U.S. beef in March after the government won approval for plans to drop its policy of testing all cattle for mad cow disease -- known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). The request by the U.S. government was made in a letter to Japan's Food Safety Commission (FSC), saying that it would "urge Japan to move even further toward harmonisation with international practice by raising the minimum age limit for BSE testing from 20 months to 30 months," Kyodo said. Approval of the easier policy by the food safety watchdog is a precondition for Japan to implement an October 2004 agreement with the United States to resume imports of American beef from cattle aged below 21 months without conducting mad cow testing....

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