Mad Cow in the US - Dishonest Beef
While I do not subscribe to the hysteria around BSE or "mad cow disease" and have posted information that shows the official scientific explanation to be little better than hogwash, I find it disturbing to see a recent account by one of the people working in the meat processing plant, where the "first and only" cow with BSE in the US has been found, which shows signs of a government hushing-up job.
The circumstances of the find are intriguing, and the fact that testing has since been abandoned should be more widely known. So, in the name of transparency, here's the story as told by Dave Louthan of Moses Lake:
Is the beef safe? Who knows?
My name is Dave and I work at Vern's Moses Lake Meats. I did until the day the mad cow test results on the Sunny Dene cow came back positive for BSE. That was Wednesday, Dec. 24. On Friday, Dec. 26, the KXLY news crew was at the end of Vern's driveway, locked out by a cable gate. The USDA had told the world that the mad cow had been slaughtered here, but it was not in the food chain. A blatant lie. It was one of many.
I walked out to the news crew at lunch time because I can't stand a government cover-up. They asked me "was the cow in the food chain?" I told them of course it was, it's meat. Where else would it be? They asked me if the cow was a downer. I told them no, it was just an old cow.
The USDA had us taking brain stem samples from downers and back door cripples only. Since we only had a few walkers on this trailer full of downers, we just killed her along with them. We took a brain sample from her head because the USDA gives up $10 per sample.
If we would have unloaded her in the pens, we would have never caught the BSE. How many other walkers have BSE? We will never know. The USDA only tested the downers and cripples and only at our plant. We had only been taking brain samples for about a month when we found this one.
When the USDA said no more downers would be slaughtered, they essentially said no more BSE testing would be done. Vern's and every other slaughterhouse kept right on killing and selling Holstein meat from the same area as the mad cow with no BSE testing whatsoever. This is true and easily verifiable.
And just so the folks in Moses Lake don't feel left out, the beef head, tongue, liver, kidneys and tail were sold right here in the Columbia Basin. It's way past time for everybody to stop thinking with their bank accounts and start trying to find a way to stop the spread of BSE.
The minute the USDA found the contaminated cow, they stopped the brain stem collection and testing. Why? Ka-ching! It's the money. Billions.
If you want to be sure you and your family are eating safe meat, demand testing on every beef slaughter. It's quick and easy. Don't eat another piece of meat until you see a sticker that says tested and cleared for BSE on the package. BSE is 100 percent fatal -- if you or your kids get it, you die a very painful death. It's a slow, wasting disease. It's terrible.
Right now, a lot of people are telling you how safe their beef is, but they don't know if it is or is not without testing. That's their checkbook talking. Tat rendering plant in Canada wasn't feeding 81 cows, it was feeding thousands of cows. Every second that goes by, more untested beef goes on the dinner plate. If you eat mad cow, you are going to get sick and you are going to die. Stand up and demand safe meat.
Dave Louthan
Moses LakeThe story was originally published as a reader's letter by the Columbia Basin Herald
Recent update (March 2004)Hi there Dave Louthan here.
See I told ya we'd get it figured out. J. Patrick Boyle CEO of AMI is slapping Ann Veneman around like a rag doll. Get the Canadian border open and do it now. He says he wants to do it to spur all foreign countries into buying our meat but the fact is he's got a lot of beef standing up there eating hay and getting to fat to sell.
I told everybody the meat people only had until calving season to get this fixed. That time is now upon us. All that inventory they have been holding back to keep the prices up must move now to make room for all the new feeders popping out now, today.
Take a drive in the country and start counting calves. They are everywhere. The dam is breaking. J. Patrick says we're not testing our cows and your going to eat them whether you like it or not. He's mad. He was forced to show his hand. He's the one that pulls Ann's strings.
At a press conference at AMI friday John Stewart CEO of Creekstone Farms said he will test all his beef whether the USDA approves or not. J.Patrick said no your not. John Stewart said we'll have to agree to disagree. J.Patrick said we'll have a private meeting when the reporters go home.
It's all on the Meating Place web site. Check it out. Here's the deal. J. Patrick demands Ann Veneman declare Canada a low risk country even though they have had a couple of mad cows already. She will do that. All those cows will start coming down here in droves.
J. Patrick will demand the U.S. Gov't start punishing all the countries that refuse our meat with trade embargoes, high tariffs and with holding of foreign aid. Mexico and some of the smaller countries will cave in to pressure. Japan and South Korea will not.
There will be a huge surplus of fat cattle waiting to be slaughtered. Prices will continue to plummet. All the smaller feedlots will go under right away. They will demand subsidies. The American taxpayer, you, will pick that up. The Gov't is already broke. George W. spent all the money beating up Saddam. Higher taxes will be necessary.
In the meantime we have a whole bunch of diseased cattle the powers that be don't want to do any thing about. They just want to play tycoon. Your not going to get sick for a while so unlike lysteria, E-coli, and salmonella they can simply push it under the rug in the name of Profit.
If this was a disease you got today and died tomorrow it would be a whole different ball game. As long as Joe Average is getting his bills paid on time and watching the evening news which is completely devoid of any MadCow reports he'll be content to sit there munching on contaminated beef and pretend that BSE is something that happens some where else. Besides it's perfectly safe and risk free the Gov't said so.
Time after time. When all those poor smucks start getting sick and are laying in the hospital with tubes running out their noses all of todays beef tycoons will be laying on private beaches in the South Pacific sucking down Margueritas and laughing about the time they tricked America into eating diseased meat and paying good money for the privilege.
My God why doesn't some body wake up the American people. NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, FOX where are you. This is your job. If you want to be the reporters of the news stop worrying about your sponsors behave with Honor and start damn well reporting the news. Hello there is a story here.
Thank you for your time
Maddddcow@hotmail.com
http://www.davelouthan.org
Here another update from Dave Louthan - 17 March 2004:Well what do you know. The USDA blinked. We kept pounding away and they blinked. The USDA says they will now test 201,000 sick and crippled cows and 20,000 healthy ones. Not today but in a few months. Since Dec. 24 and June how many diseased cattle will have been killed and eaten. One for sure. Remember the 60 missing from the herd of 81. While the USDA held back the testing the farmers rushed those cows to slaughter. Now when June gets here the USDA will announce a 2 or 3 month delay getting the program started. And so on. Now is the most dangerous time to eat beef. Here's the scary part. According to the USDA in 2002: 251,500 cows died of unknown reasons or reasons that could be consistent with BSE related clinical signs. Let me translate that for you. The same people that kept telling you the meat was safe buy beef are now saying that 251,000 cows may have died of BSE in one year. 251,000. This information is available to you at www.aphis.usda.gov/ as a PDF file.
They announced this new program not out of concern for the safety of the consumer but because of pressure put on them by the Gov't, the consumer, and by our export partners Japan and S. Korea. Dr. DeHaven states its not for safety but to determine prevalence. That's what they were doing when all those poor people ate that mad cow in Dec. I don't want to learn about prevalence while I eat contaminated beef. I want these fools to start testing the beef I'm eating. My kids are eating. Right now today.
They say they will test 201,000 sick cows and 20,000 old cows. This is called scientific statistical testing. Dr. DeHaven says that if there are 5 sick cows in the country this will find them. What a crock. Let me explain statistical sampling. Let's say you have a football stadium full of people. You bring out one person and test him for AIDS. If he passes you say everybody in the stadium is healthy. That's statistical testing. It is obvious even to me that statistical testing only works if by some fluke you happen to get a sample from a sick cow. If you have one hundred cows lined up and the first 5 are sick but you only test the last 5 you are not going to find any sick cows. Period.
These idiots need to stop screwing around with science that is too complicated for them to understand and start allowing the professional beef producers to test their own beef.
Dr. DeHaven also pointed out that USDA thinks it will find the prevalence of this disease is very low. However, there is a chance they could find more positive cattle. "But keep it in perspective," he said. USDA says it anticipates some positive results at the initial screening level. "Keep in mind there may be false positives," he said. Translation: If we find any positives we will try to cover it up or deny at every opportunity. These people have compromised their integrity by lying and lying and lying and now there is no way I'm going to believe a single word they say.
Here is another shocker for you. They are still allowing blood and gelatin into the feed supply. The interim rules they announced were just suggestions because feeding the cows blood was not safe. The actual rules will not be ready for " a few months". Not to mention all the mountains of contaminated feed all ready on site. There is no way the ranchers are going to throw away feed they paid good money for. Would you? As always everything I have said here is easily verifiable. Take care.
Maddddcow@hotmail.com
http://www.davelouthan.org
Another update from Dave Louthan - 29 March 2004:Hi Dave Louthan here. I'm the guy who shot the mad cow and been kicking the USDA's ass ever since. The other day I asked for help and I got some. Thank you to all that came through. I'm proud of you. The fight is on.
Now I want to talk about these lying idiots that run the USDA, the FDA, and the greedy worms that head the various cattleman's associations.
First lets address the new testing program that hasn't even come close to starting yet. The USDA says they want to test 201,000 sick and dead cows and 20,000 healthy ones. For those of you who don't have any slaughter experience it'll go like this. A farmer will call the USDA and tell them he's got a dead cow he wants to sell. A gov't worker will drive out to the farm who knows how many hours away. He meets with the farmer and they walk out to the pasture and look at the cow. It's been dead for a while now and laying in the sun. This cow will be bloated like a balloon ready to pop and it will be extremely putrid. The stench coming out of this animal would make a buzzard puke. The gov't guy will take a knife and skin the head exposing the skull. If he isn't leaning over the fence rail retching his guts out now he will take a hatchet or saw to the skull and try to open it to get at the brain. This part is like opening a 50 lb coconut full of rotten goo. He scoops out a sample, writes the farmer a check with a very shaky hand and drives back to town thinking transfer to a new post all the way there. And this is going to happen 201,000 times in a year? Now that's funny. As you can see this new testing program will never ever fly. It isn't supposed to. It's a whitewash a smoke screen. It's the only thing the USDA does well.
This is where the USDA collective mind is really at. USDA spokesperson Alisa Harrison - "Opening all these (export) markets is a top priority for us." They don't give a damn if the meat is diseased as long as they can sell it. Keep in mind now they haven't tested a single solitary food beef since December 24th. Not one. They feel that the scientific information they have will be enough to bluff the foreign markets open. They don't know it but they can feel it. That's very reassuring. They feel there are no more mad cows. I feel there are a lot more mad cows. Who's feelings are we going to go with because there is no science. There are a few people sitting in an office in Washington D.C. fretting on how to get the markets open before J. Patrick Boyle and the good folks at the American Meat institute have their heads. That is not science. Science is testing everything you can get your hands on and having top scientists working day and night trying to figure out how to stop an epidemic that we don't understand. I don't have any idea how many mad cows there are out there but I did splatter one all over me. We had just started testing at Vern's Meat. We had taken maybe 100 tests and we found that one that fast. If you use their equations then there are over a million mad cows in this country. Now thats science. Well not really that cow was not supposed to be tested. It was an accident of sorts. A product of my always being in a hurry.
Jim Hodges president of the American Meat Institute.(they're not very American nor are they an institute. catchy name though) says "The testing issue is very problematic". What he means is they don't dare test the beef because they will start finding more sick cows and they can't sell to the foreign markets unless they do. But if they do they will find some and they won't be able to sell to the foreign markets. Yes that is problematic Jim.
Now can somebody answer this question for me? If the whole world is afraid of our meat and we know ourselves we have an undetermined number of mad cows in our herd why is everybody still eating it? BSE is a terrible brain wasting disease with no cure. Slow horrible death 100% of the time. Why are we letting the Gov't and the meat pushers get away with murder? A whole bunch of people ate that cow I killed and now they get to wait for death. That could have been prevented. How many more people will be subjected to that fate? All of you need to get to your phones and start calling the Gov't and keep screaming until we get some action. Take care.
Maddddcow@hotmail.com
http://www.davelouthan.orgSee also:
USDA COVER-UP OF MAD COW CASES
The USDA has refused to respond to allegations that it has been covering up cases of Mad Cow disease in the U.S. for well over a decade. Lester Friedlander, a former USDA veterinarian, says he was told by USDA officials as far back as 1991 that if his testing laboratory ever found evidence of Mad Cow disease, he was to tell no one. He and other scientists say they know of cases where cows tested positive for the disease in laboratories but were ruled negative by the USDA. Mad cow is a concern to public health because humans can contract a fatal brain illness known as variant Creutzfeldt Jakob disease from eating beef products contaminated with the mad cow pathogen.
TAKE ACTION! Sign the Mad Cow petitionReport Raises Questions About US Cattle Feed Ban
March 15, 2005 - WASHINGTON - The effectiveness of the most important US safeguard against mad cow disease was questioned Monday when a government report accused the Food and Drug Administration of "overstating" feed mill compliance with a ban on cattle remains in animal feed. The Government Accountability Office report was released as many US lawmakers seek to prevent Canadian cattle from entering the United States because of concerns that its neighbour was not effectively enforcing its own animal feed ban.How Now, Mad Cow?
By Diane Farsetta, AlterNet. Posted December 23, 2004.
One year after the first case of mad cow disease in the US was confirmed, promised food safety reforms have yet to be instituted. And they never will be, if the cattle industry has its way.White House may ease 'downer cattle' ban
(from msnbc - link expired)
April 15, 2005: WASHINGTON - The Bush administration said Friday it may allow some injured cattle to be slaughtered for human food, easing a regulation that the Agriculture Department adopted 15 months ago after the nation's first case of mad cow disease.USDA Gag Order Placed On Federal Employees In Texas Mad Cow Case
Testing All U.S. Cows for BSE Not Necessary, Officials Say
A Second Test Shows Animal Did Not Have Mad Cow Disease
(interesting that the US has a ban on Japanese beef that is still standing, according to J.B. Penn, Under Secretary of Agriculture for Farm and Foreign Agriculture, "because no one has asked it to be lifted". See the last question on the above link.)
Are FDA Mad Cow Guidelines Enough? - Dr Mercola
Agricultural Dept.'s Inspector General Calls Mad Cow Testing Plan Seriously Flawed - New York Times
New Study Reveals Gaping Holes in Mad Cow 'Firewall'
Why the USDA outlaws independent testing for mad cow disease
6/28/2005 USDA ATTEMPT TO BURY MAD COW FAILS - Another case of Mad Cow disease (BSE) in the United States has been confirmed. The cow, apparently from Texas, was originally slaughtered and pronounced free of BSE by the USDA in November 2004, under rather suspicious circumstances. Facing mounting criticism by public interest groups, including the OCA, Consumers Union, and the Center for Media and Democracy, the USDA finally allowed a UK lab to retest the brain, revealing that the animal did, indeed, have the fatal brain wasting disease. Despite warnings by scientists and bans on U.S. beef exports, the USDA still refuses to test more than a tiny fraction of U.S. cattle, and continues to allow the routine feeding of blood, manure, and slaughterhouse waste to farm animals. Consumers, responding to the fact that these risky practices are prohibited on organic farms, are turning in droves to organic and grass-fed beef. In 2004 organic beef sales increased by over 120% in the U.S.
Japan raises new fears about U.S. beef
Friday, July 15, 2005 - Associated Press
Tokyo — Japanese food safety regulators were questioning the safety of U.S. beef after a Ministry of Agriculture study showed nearly half of the 20 mad cow cases found in Japan would have passed unnoticed if tested under U.S. methods, officials said Friday.How to Bury a Mad Cow
The US mad cow testing system seems designed to cover up mad cow disease rather than find it. Other countries test most or all of their cattle before human consumption for food safety purposes. The United States tests a small percentage of the 36 million cattle a year slaughtered and put into the human and animal feed chain. Most animals infected with mad cow disease will look healthy and be slaughtered and put into the food system without testing.Meatpacker sues feds for the right to test its own herd for mad cow disease
(from unknownnews.org - link expired)
March 22, 2006
WASHINGTON -- A Kansas meatpacker has sparked an industry fight by proposing testing all the company's cattle for mad cow disease.JAPANESE OFFICIALS RESIGN OVER U.S. MAD COW DEBACLE
Despite new cases of Mad Cow disease surfacing in the U.S., Japan is reopening its borders to American beef. As a result of the policy decision half of the members of Japan's beef-safety government advisory panel have resigned. Morikazu Shinagawa, a researcher at the national Institute of Animal Health and a resigning member of the panel, told Kyodo News Service he "couldn't continue to work" on the panel because the conclusion to resume imports was preordained by the government. Japan banned U.S. beef imports in 2003 due to weak beef safety regulations in the U.S. While 100% of cows in Japan, aged 24 months and older, are tested for the Mad Cow disease, only 1% of the 35 million cattle slaughtered annually in the U.S. are tested. Japan recently caved to pressure from the Bush Administration and lift the ban on U.S. beef imports while appointing new "experts" to its beef safety advisory panel.USDA downplays seriousness of mad cow disease found in Alabama cow
MAY 2006 - Mad cow disease was recently confirmed in a cow in Alabama, according to two tests conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Even so, the USDA seems just as reluctant as usual to admit that U.S. herds continue to be infected with mad cow disease. Even though the results of this second test have been announced, there is a whole lot of spin from the USDA on trying to suppress the severity of this news -- so let me translate it into plain English for you.May 2007: U.S. on mad cow: Don't test all cattle
The Bush administration said Tuesday it will fight to keep meatpackers from testing all their animals for mad cow disease. The Agriculture Department tests less than 1% of slaughtered cows for the disease, which can be fatal to humans who eat tainted beef. But Kansas-based Creekstone Farms Premium Beef wants to test all of its cows. A federal judge ruled in March that such tests must be allowed. The ruling was to take effect June 1, but the Agriculture Department said Tuesday it would appeal — effectively delaying the testing until the court challenge plays out.
And here a view on mad cow politics by Jon Rappoport of www.nomorefakenews.com
THE PLAN BEHIND MAD COWFEBRUARY 6, 2004. After some interviews with reliable sources of mine, and after reading the latest article on mad cow madness posted at Red Flags Weekly by Mark Purdey, I am ready to make a call on why mad cow has been shoved into the spotlight.
And on how in the hell such degraded and fake science (the prion theory of causation) has come to the head of the line and gained a Nobel prize for its chief proponent, Stanley Prusiner.
Based on mad cow fake science, the slaughter of animals in various parts of the world is enormous and is wrecking many, many long-standing farms---and is also threatening to wipe out many traditional breeding lines of animals (goats and elk and moose and sheep as well as cows) that have proved extemely hardy and have survived the tests of time and environment.
The very long-range plan is to introduce genetically-altered animals, which will be said to be free from the dreaded prion (which causes NOTHING).
The same corporations that are bringing us genetically modified food crops are drooling at the prospect of owning the "new animals."
And selling them at high prices.
At prices the small farmer can't afford.
This factor, coupled with the current destruction of farms owing to the slaughter of animals, will throw immense amounts of farmland into the hands of mega-agri-giants.
Nothing less than the control of the food supply is at stake.
Of course, we will be told that this vast shift in farming ownership is necessary for public health.
"It's not political, it's about human health."
That's where they're heading.
It's another huge building block of the Brave New World.
These lunatics are banking on the premise that they will be able to create animals that thrive and survive just as well as "natural animals" do. Such an assumption is more than just shaky. Mark Purdey believes it won't work, and based on what has happened to genetically-engineered food crops, I agree.
A number of environmentalists and animal-rights advocates are, in the case of mad cow, celebrating all the fear-mongering propaganda centering around the prion and the so-called (unproven) human version of mad cow. These people believe that anything that drives people away from eating meat is a good thing. They are perhaps not aware of the extent of the animal slaughtering going on in the name of eliminating mad cow. Or maybe they think the sacrifice is worth it in the long run.
They should reflect on the fact that this global slaughter of animals has nothing to do with stopping mad cow. Since the prion is false science, what is really happening here is the birthing of new generations of animals that will be genetically designed---and killed, and eaten. These environmentalists and animal-rights advocates are unknowingly being used to support the corporations who are spreading the fear of mad cow as a prelude to designing, owning, and licensing New Created Animals.
ANOTHER LINK IN THE MAD COW CHAINFEBRUARY 6, 2004. If you read the Nobel-prize-acceptance words of Stanley Prusiner, you will find a curious mention. Prusiner, the man behind the mad-cow prion theory of causation, made a bow in the direction of RJ Reynolds.
Seems that at a crucial moment in his research, Reynolds came up with a big grant.
Why should that tobacco giant be interested in prions?
I can think of one reason. Since the doomed 1960s viral cancer project failed to establish a viral cause for cancer, nothing in that vein has appeared on the horizon.
Then along comes Prusiner with a new idea: there could be a completely different TYPE of disease agent that has not been looked at before.
Suppose prions could be linked to cancer, particularly lung cancer?
Then Big Tobacco could say PRIONS, not cigarettes, are the real cause.
Be on the lookout for this suggestion in the press.
In fact, prion research is being carried out at several cancer centers.
When you get a wild card like prions, and especially when the science behind it is unfounded, anybody can suggest anything. Prions cause manic depression. Prions cause depression. Prions cause car accidents.
JON RAPPOPORT www.nomorefakenews.com
posted by Sepp Hasslberger on Thursday January 29 2004
updated on Monday October 6 2008URL of this article:
http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2004/01/29/mad_cow_in_the_us_dishonest_beef.htm
Related ArticlesMad Cow in the US: We're going to D.C.
The man who killed the mad cow - Dave Louthan - has been doing his nut to break through the apparent government cover-up of mad cow in the US. Without any appreciable result. "I talked to anybody who would listen. TV, radio, the papers, Congress, state and federal, the internet. Everybody I could think of. I must have done a thousand interviews but nothing changed. Old dairy cows kept getting... [read more]
May 17, 2004 - Sepp HasslbergerMad Cow & Parkinson's?
USDA orders silence on mad cow in Texas. One has to wonder how much of this actually goes on and gets though the controlled media. Suspect we only see the occasional botch and in reality this is the norm and not the exception as the vested interests should like us to believe... The following response to an earlier post:"Six weeks to Parkinson's improvement with a single vitamin" which makes some... [read more]
May 14, 2004 - Chris GuptaInsecticide Causes Mad Cow Disease?
This is an important article to be aware of. The implications are widespread and explains why vegetarians have also gotten this disease! Chris Gupta Insecticide Causes Mad Cow Disease - We learn that pharmaceutical interests in the UK are ignoring new scientific research that shows the insecticide used in the UK government's own warble-fly campaigns triggered the UK surge of 'Mad Cow' disease, according to this report from... [read more]
January 02, 2004 - Chris GuptaRe: Mad Cow disease & pesticides (Organophosphate)
Here is a classic "expert" response to the question "Insecticide Causes Mad Cow Disease?" It seems, the experts never have to provide evidence of their views (beliefs'), however, those questioning them simply can never provide sufficient evidence! Any suspicions of a connection due to Organophosphates and their neuro-toxicity is summarily ignored - hardly conducive to a fair scientific inquiry or follow up... Translation: Gi, if we the "experts" have not... [read more]
January 07, 2004 - Chris GuptaBSE: USDA Rejected Testing Scheme for Mad Cow
According to Steve Michell's recent article published on UPI, the USDA contradicts its own policy in testing for Mad Cow Disease. It has actually rejected Creekstone Farms' proposal for testing its beef for export, calling the testing plan "scientifically unsound". The Consumers Union, along with 12 other advocacy groups --- including Public Citizen and the Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease Foundation --- sent USDA a letter [on April 19] urging it to... [read more]
April 25, 2004 - Sepp HasslbergerMad Cow Disease - setting the record straight on BSE
Bovine Spongiform Encephalitis, or BSE, also called "Mad Cow Disease", has probably done more to change food regulations in Europe than any other threat or scandal over food-borne disease ever. Thousands of animals have been slaughtered in an effort to contain the "infection", but it appears that scientific facts do not bear out the official version of an infectuous prion protein that transmits the dreaded Creutzfeld Jacob Disease from farm... [read more]
November 11, 2003 - Sepp Hasslberger
