onsumer groups called for a Congressional
investigation yesterday into the death of a cow with symptoms of brain
damage at a Texas slaughterhouse last week.
The cow, which staggered and collapsed after passing an initial visual
inspection at Lone Star Beef in San Angelo, Tex., was condemned as unfit
for human consumption and under federal regulations should have been
tested for mad cow disease.
Instead, it was sent to a rendering plant to be made into animal food
and byproducts.
The Consumers Union, the Center for Food Safety and the Government
Accountability Project said yesterday that they wanted Congress to look
into why the cow was not tested and the possibility that federal officials
ordered that no test be done.
Consumer groups have regularly accused
the Agriculture Department of trying to avoid finding more mad cow disease
because of the damage it would do to the beef industry. Former beef
industry officials hold high positions in the
department.
The department said yesterday that failing to take a sample was a
mistake and that it would investigate. Its inspector general's office said
it would do its own inquiry.
The consumer groups were reacting to an article published yesterday by
meatingplace.com, a meat industry Web site. Citing two anonymous sources,
it said it had firsthand knowledge of the events, one in government and
one in industry. The article said a federal
inspector had started to take a brain sample but was ordered not to by the
regional headquarters of the Agriculture Department in Austin,
Tex.
Ed Loyd, a department spokesman, said he could not comment on the
report.
A spokeswoman for the slaughterhouse
said yesterday that the federal inspectors had discussed taking a sample
but decided against it. The spokeswoman, Rosemary Mucklow, executive
director of the National Meat Association, which represents meatpackers,
said they did not explain why or describe a discussion with the Austin
office.
The federal inspectors instructed the plant to slash the carcass and
paint it with green dye before putting it on the regular 3 p.m. rendering
truck, Ms. Mucklow said.
Felicia Nestor, director of food safety at the Government
Accountability Project, which protects federal whistle-blowers, said she
had heard of several recent instances in which inspectors had been told by
regional offices not to bother testing cows with signs of brain damage.
Ms. Nestor said the whistle-blowers did not want to come forward.
Staggering and collapse by a cow can be caused by head injuries,
rabies, agricultural poisons or cancer, but mad cow disease can be
detected only by cutting off the animal's head, taking a sample from the
base of the brain and doing laboratory tests that are not now performed in
slaughterhouses.
Ms. Nestor said she had been told that some tests were skipped because
they were inconvenient. In a state like Texas, she said, the drive to the
regional office with samples could be several hundred miles. But, she
noted, other slaughterhouse inspectors have shipped frozen heads or brains
to the U.S.D.A. testing laboratory in Ames, Iowa.
Mr. Loyd said he did not know the shipping procedures.
The Food and Drug Administration, which regulates rendering plants,
said Tuesday that it had tracked the slaughterhouse's shipment and would
require that it all be destroyed or made into pig feed. Swine are thought
not to be susceptible to mad cow disease.
Lone Star Beef is the country's 18th-largest slaughterhouse and
specializes in older dairy cattle, which are at highest risk of the
disease.
According to Steve Mitchell, a United Press International medical
reporter who has collected thousands of 2002 and 2003 slaughterhouse
records under the Freedom of Information Act, Lone Star Beef slaughtered
about 350,000 animals in those years and tested only three.
Mr. Loyd confirmed that but explained that the animals normally tested
were those unable to walk, or "downers." Lone Star does not accept downers
because it is a supplier to McDonald's, which forbids them.
"The other plant in town had 90 tests," he said. "They accepted
downers."
