Editorial: Mad cow requires swift action

Tuesday, Dec. 30, 2003 | 8:59 a.m.

In the week since the United States learned of its first case of mad cow disease, more than 30 countries have stopped importing our beef. For the imports to resume, the world will need assurances that we are serious about addressing this threat to the food supply. Our biggest importer, Japan, revolutionized its beef industry two years ago after it confirmed its own first case of the disease. Japan slaughters about 1.3 million cows a year and every single one is now tested beforehand for mad cow disease.

Here in the United States, about 35 million cows are slaughtered each year and processed for their meat. The only ones tested for mad cow disease are those showing visible signs of possibly having it, such as a cow with no broken bones staggering or unable to stand. Over the past several years only about 20,000 to 30,000 cows were tested for it. Agriculture Department officials are still defending this small amount of testing, despite the growing world reaction to last week's news. They will have to change their position if they want to regain world confidence in our beef exports.

Coming under increased scrutiny now is the Agriculture Department's tolerance of meat from "downers," cows no longer able to walk on their own that must be dragged into slaughterhouses. Downers have the highest probability of carrying the disease. Well in excess of 100,000 of them are slaughtered each year in the United States. The policy of allowing downers to be slaughtered for food is based on what is known about how mad cow disease passes to humans. The disease is thought to be wholly contained within a cow's brain, spinal cord and a portion of intestine -- parts of the cow that are removed before processing. It is not thought to be present in muscle tissue, which is processed into hamburgers, roasts and other meats.

An article in Sunday's New York Times, however, reported on the latest techniques in meat-packing plants. Advanced machinery extracts meat "close to the animals' bones and spinal cords, increasing the chances that possibly risky tissue from their central nervous systems could end up in hamburgers and other processed meat," the newspaper reported. The article also pointed out that Congress -- three times -- has come close to banning the sale of meat from downed animals, but each time was dissuaded by lobbyists for the beef industry.

The issue is critical because the slaughtered cow now known to have had mad cow disease was a downer. If downers had been banned from the food supply, the current crisis would have been averted. That the meat from the downer and other cattle slaughtered at the same time and place was allowed to get into the food chain before the test results were known is proof that quicker testing and other reforms are needed. Meat from the Dec. 9 slaughter in Washington state had been distributed to outlets in Nevada, at least seven other states, and Guam before the test results were announced Dec. 23.

Mad cow disease was discovered in Great Britain in 1986 and since then 4.5 million cows have been slaughtered there to prevent its spread, according the Times article. The paper also reported that 137 people, mostly in Britain, have died from the human form of the disease after eating contaminated meat. The disease resulted in reforms of cattle testing throughout Europe. Because there had been no incidents here, the United States government did not step up its inspection methods and took no steps to modernize tracking of animals. We are now paying the price. It's taken a week to track the diseased cow to a herd imported from Canada -- and no one yet knows where the rest of the herd ended up.

Congress must now hasten to look at the facts surrounding the entire meat-processing industry, rather than continue trusting the judgment of lobbyists who are looking to cut costs for their employers. Major flaws have been revealed in our systems of testing and tracking cattle, and new laws and regulations are needed quickly to fix them.