WASHINGTON, May 4 (UPI) -- Only three cows have been tested for mad cow disease over the past two years at the Texas plant where federal testing policies for the deadly disease were breached last week, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture testing records obtained by United Press International.
The small number of tests occurred despite the fact that the plant, Lone Star Beef in San Angelo, Texas, processes older, dairy cows, which are considered to hold a high risk of being infected. The only confirmed mad cow infection in U.S. herds occurred last December in a 6 1/2-year-old dairy cow in Washington state.
Lone Star is the 18th largest slaughterhouse in the country and processed about 350,000 animals over the two-year period. Its low testing rate is particularly relevant, a USDA veterinarian and a consumer advocate told UPI, because an animal with symptoms consistent with mad cow disease appeared at the plant last week but was never tested.
On April 27, a USDA veterinarian stationed at Lone Star condemned a cow because it exhibited signs of a central nervous system disorder, a possible indication of mad cow disease or other conditions, such as poisoning or rabies.
USDA policy is all animals with CNS signs should be tested for mad cow because they are considered the most likely to be infected with the deadly disorder. However, for reasons that remain unclear, the animal was sent to a rendering plant before a sample of its brain could be retained. This means it can no longer be tested and no one can know for certain whether the cow was infected.
USDA officials last week announced the testing protocol had been breached and that it is investigating the incident, but in the meantime it said the animal was kept out of the human food supply and poses no risk to people. The concern is humans can contract an incurable, fatal brain disease called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease from eating meat infected with the mad cow pathogen.
Ron DeHaven, administrator at USDA's Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service, which oversees the agency's mad cow testing program, declined a request from UPI to comment on the lack of testing at Lone Star.
"USDA is currently investigating the situation in Texas," agency spokesman Jim Rogers told UPI. "Due to this investigation, I must decline your request for an interview," Rogers added.
All three animals tested at Lone Star Beef over the past two years were screened within about a two-week period in fiscal year 2003, according to the USDA's mad-cow testing records for 2002 and the first 10 months of 2003 that UPI obtained via the Freedom of Information Act.
One animal was tested on Dec. 20, 2002, and two were tested on Jan. 3, 2003. No animals from the plant were tested in fiscal year 2002. The USDA follows the federal government's fiscal year, which runs from Oct. 1 through Sept. 30.
The three tested animals were 60, 72 and 96 months old, respectively -- all elderly by cow standards -- and all were downers, or unable to stand, an indication the plant was processing both older and high-risk animals. Downer cows are considered by the USDA to be among those most likely to test positive for mad cow.
Lone Star Beef did not respond to a request by UPI for comment.
A 1998 issue of Cattle Buyer's Weekly magazine listed the plant's primary product as boneless cow products, such as ground beef. This generally consists of meat from culled cows -- those removed from dairy herds because they are injured, sick or have stopped producing milk, Lester Friedlander, a former veterinarian with the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service, told UPI.
This would make it one of the highest-risk plants in the country for receiving a mad cow, Friedlander said. The low number of mad-cow tests at a high-risk plant such as Lone Star, indicates "the USDA doesn't want to find the disease," he charged.
This type of plant "would be number one on my list" to establish a mad cow surveillance program, Friedlander added. "This should be investigated by Congress. It's about time Congress woke up and started being a little more active in this."
UPI previously has reported the USDA's records show no tests had been conducted from 2002 through July of 2003 at Vern's Moses Lake Meats in Mabton, Wash., where the nation's only confirmed case of mad cow was detected last December. Vern's Moses Lake, like Lone Star, processes culled dairy cows.
Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, one of the most vocal USDA critics in Congress, called the failure to test the animal in Texas "inexcusable."
Regarding the small number of tests at Lone Star, Harkin's spokesman Matt Hartwig told UPI, "Senator Harkin will take this incident in Texas very seriously and will take a look at our efforts to test animals as they come through the processing facilities."
A Senate staff member, who requested anonymity, told UPI, "I'm sure this issue won't go away anytime soon." Although the mad-cow issue has quieted down on Capitol Hill in recent months, the aide said, "I think this will cause people to pay attention and make sure we are taking the necessary safeguards."
Felicia Nestor, senior policy adviser to the Government Accountability Project in Washington, D.C., a group that works with federal whistleblowers, said, "It's always surprising when you look at this data -- just the gaps in what would seem sensible."
Nestor, who has followed the USDA's mad cow program closely for several years, suggested there is an institutional barrier that makes it difficult for APHIS employees to obtain samples. In many cases, APHIS personnel pick up brain samples from the plants and send them to a USDA lab in Ames, Iowa, to be tested.
Nestor said she has heard from USDA inspectors there are instances where the APHIS veterinarian is located hundreds of miles from some plants and therefore is inconvenienced by the distance when collecting brain samples.
"The circumstantial evidence would suggest that's the situation here (at Lone Star Beef)," she said.
USDA's Rogers said he would look into how close the nearest APHIS veterinarian is to Lone Star, but he did not respond by UPI's publication time.
Nestor also expressed skepticism about the USDA's expanded mad cow surveillance program, which is slated to begin on June 1.
"It really suggests we're not going to have adequate coverage under the new surveillance system unless the agency explicitly states how they're going to fix this problem," she said.
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Steve Mitchell is UPI's Medical Correspondent. E-mail [email protected]
