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New test result points to mad cow questions
June 11, 2005

The disclosure that a cow that had been cleared of mad cow concerns by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in November has now tested positive for the disease raises questions about the government’s mad-cow testing program.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns announced the test results Friday night. He said the case involved a cow that had been tested for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, in November. The cow had tested positive for BSE through a rapid test conducted at a cattle rendering plant, then a brain sample was sent to the department’s Ames, Iowa, animal health laboratory for further testing. Technicians there conducted another test using an immunohistochemistry, or IHC, test, which they said showed the cow testing negative.

USDA officials at the time hailed the IHC results as demonstrating that the cow was not infected with BSE.
Johanns and John Clifford, chief veterinarian for USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, said the new positive test results came after Ames lab technicians used another type of test, called a Western blot, on samples from the cow. The new testing was done at the request of the USDA’s Office of the Inspector General, Johanns said. He did not explain why the OIG had requested the new testing.

Among the questions that USDA officials should answer:

• Why haven’t Western blot tests been used on cattle before the inspector general requested it?

• Will Western blot tests, which scientists who have studied the proteins considered to be the cause of BSE say are more accurate than the IHC test, be used on future cattle samples as part of the USDA’s testing program?

• What is the inspector general investigating? A press report quoting a former meat inspector says the inspector general is investigating whether the USDA is covering up cases of mad cow disease.

• Will USDA allow outside experts to conduct tests on cattle brain samples? Another press report cited scientists who questioned the handling of the November cow, saying USDA should have used the more accurate Western blot test.

Where now, mad cow?
July 22, 2004

A draft of an investigative report written for Congress and testimony before U.S. House committees last week provided some new details about how the U.S. government is conducting its program for testing for mad cow disease.

Most startling among the revelations: The U.S. Department of Agriculture was unable to provide documentation to allow an investigator to examine how the USDA’s mad cow testing program from 1990 through 2003 was designed and conducted.

Among other revelations, the draft report by the USDA’s inspector general found that:

• Because the USDA’s expanded mad cow testing program relies on voluntary participation by slaughtering facilities, rendering plants, ranchers and others, the results do not reflect an accurate sampling of the U.S. cattle herd.

• Many of the highest-risk cattle are not being tested.

• The testing program assumes that only old, sick cattle could test positive, despite the fact that healthy-looking cattle have tested positive in Europe.

• Additionally, in her testimony to the House committees on government reform and agriculture, USDA Inspector General Phyllis Fong described how a beef industry executive was able to persuade government regulators not to test a cow exhibiting nervous system trouble at his slaughtering plant for the presence of BSE.

The draft inspector general’s report is posted on the website of Rep. Henry Waxman here.

CSPAN aired the July 14 congressional hearing and archived the video, which you can view with RealPlayer by clicking here. The hearing lasted for four hours.

Written testimony submitted at the hearing by Inspector General Phyllis Fong is available here.

Other written testimony submitted to the committees is available here.

No documentation?

The inspector general’s report, congressional testimony and news stories during the second week of July centered on USDA’s expanded BSE testing program. The USDA announced its intention to expand testing for BSE after a cow in Washington state tested positive for BSE in December.

But a stunning revelation concerning USDA’s pre-December 2003 BSE testing program has received no attention from the news media and drew no questions from congressmen who are charged with overseeing the USDA.

It’s contained on the first page of the executive summary of the inspector general’s draft report:

“The objectives of our audit were to determine whether the surveillance program in place at the time of the December 2003 discovery of BSE was adequately implemented and whether the expanded program will accomplish its goal – to determine if “… BSE is actually present in the population and if so, at what level.”

“This is the first of a series of reports we are planning to issue on our evaluation of USDA’s BSE surveillance activities. We could not fully evaluate the first objective due to the absence of adequate documentation (see General Comments Section) to support the basis for USDA’s BSE surveillance plan prior to the discovery of the BSE-infected cow. [emphasis added] Our evaluation of the second objective was limited because the design and implementation of the BSE surveillance program is still in a state of flux. …”

Then, this is from the General Comments Section of the report:

“Our review disclosed an almost complete absence of available documentation supporting the development and evolution of the USDA BSE Surveillance Program as it existed from its inception in 1990 through 2003. [emphasis added] Specifically missing was detailed support for sample size determinations and for critical assumptions made in devising and revising the sampling plans. When asked for information supporting the USDA Surveillance Program, we were told by senior department officials responsible for the program that all information and data supporting the surveillance program was contained on the APHIS [Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service] Internet web site and very little other supporting analyses, decision memoranda, or other documentation was actually provided to us for review. APHIS senior management referred to the former BSE Surveillance Program manager, who they said would have documentation supporting the program. However, the former program manager provided us with only limited documentation consisting of various training materials and briefing documents prepared over time for the program.”

Contrast the inspector general’s statement that USDA could provide almost no documentation concerning how it has managed its pre-2004 BSE testing program with this:

“This Administration has taken aggressive steps to strengthen BSE protection systems, including significant funding increases for inspection, testing and research programs. We have in place coordinated programs to ensure vigilance in protecting the public health and animals from disease.”

Those were the words of Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman on February 26, 2002.

Background materials on mad-cow disease
March 2004

Many important developments regarding mad-cow disease have occurred in recent weeks, but they have not gotten the widespread media coverage that occurred immediately after the December discovery of a cow infected with the substance that causes bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE.

Following are summaries of some of those developments, with links to related news stories and documents.

Testing for BSE

News stories
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s program for testing for the presence of BSE has come under greater scrutiny.

In a Feb. 24 story that examined BSE testing in the Pacific Northwest last year, The Seattle Times reported that nationwide testing for BSE fell 48 percent in the month of January, when compared to the month of December.

United Press International reported on Feb. 9 that USDA veterinarians have lost faith in the agency’s sole BSE testing laboratory, with some suspecting that the lab is participating in a coverup of additional cases of mad-cow disease.

In a Feb. 8 story, The New York Times examined complaints about the USDA’s BSE testing program from critics who say the program is lax and unscientific.

The Sacramento Bee reported on Feb. 8 that USDA officials, foreign governments and consumer advocates all agree that the cow discovered with BSE in Washington state isn’t the only one in the U.S. with the infection.

Documents
Stanley Prusiner, a neurologist who won a Nobel Prize for his discoveries concerning the cause of BSE, testified at a congressional hearing on Jan. 27, saying the U.S. needs to test every cow bound for slaughter for BSE. (Download requires Acrobat Reader.)

An international panel convened by the USDA recommended increased testing for BSE. Among other findings, the panel said, "... [I]t is probable that other infected animals have not been detected and therefore infective material has likely been rendered, fed to cattle, and amplified within the cattle population, so that cattle in the USA have also been indigenously infected." The panel's report is available here.

Affidavit taken by the watchdog group Government Accountability Project from Paul Carney, a consumer safety inspector with the USDA, in which he says not enough BSE testing is being done.

News stories
In congressional testimony, three people who worked at the slaughterhouse where the Washington "mad cow" was killed contradicted the USDA, saying the cow was not a "downer" animal. The Seattle Times reported Feb. 18, as did The Washington Post.

One of the slaughterhouse workers had been speaking out already, as The New York Times reported on Feb. 3.

Document
The chairman and ranking minority member of the U.S. House Committee on Government Reform wrote this letter on Feb. 17 to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman, saying the slaughterhouse workers' testimony had "serious implications" for the USDA's credibility.

News stories
Some scientists find faults in a Harvard Center for Risk Analysis study often cited by USDA officials as evidence that the risk of BSE in the U.S. is low, as The Sacramento Bee reported on Feb. 16.

An analysis of the Harvard study shows that the USDA underestimates the risk of mad-cow disease outbreaks and relies on a flawed simulation, The Denver Post reported on Feb. 13.

One of the co-authors of the Harvard study says "... I wouldn't bet my life that no more [BSE] cases exist" in this Feb. 8 Sacramento Bee story.

Documents
The Harvard Center for Risk Analysis constructed a computer simulation model designed to evaluate the risk of BSE spreading in the U.S. if it were introduced into the country. The analysis concluded that if BSE were introduced into the U.S., existing measures would eventually lead to its elimination.

The authors summarize that finding by saying the U.S. regulatory system is "robust" against the spread of BSE. However, USDA officials have characterized the Harvard study results as showing the risk of BSE occurring in the U.S. is low, as demonstrated in this USDA news release titled "Harvard Study Shows Very Low Risk of BSE in the United States" announcing the Harvard findings in 2001.

The Harvard center's first version of its study, published Nov. 26, 2001, is posted on this USDA website, along with other related documents.

The USDA hired Research Triangle Institute of Research Triangle Park, N.C., to coordinate a peer review of the Harvard study. The RTI analysis was completed Oct. 31, 2002, but wasn't released to the public until last month. It is available on this USDA website. As is the Harvard study, the RTI analysis is a long document. But it makes several key points:

USDA asked the Harvard authors last year to use their simulation model to perform a reanalysis after a "mad cow" was found in Canada. The USDA did not issue a news release concerning the reanalysis when it was completed and the reanalysis is not available on the USDA website. The Harvard School of Public Health on Oct. 31, 2003, issued this press release titled "Reanalysis of Mad Cow Disease Confirms Risk is Low in the U.S." Read the actual reanalysis and judge for yourself whether that headline is appropriate.