Midnight's drawing nigh. It's getting' time for the cowpokes at USDA to announce the results from their new tests of that mildly mad cow.
Following are some things to keep in mind when the news comes down.
But before the jump, wouldn't you love to by a fly on the proverbial wall as USDA officials twist the arms of those Brits who are doing the latest testing? And I'm not talking about arm-twisting to fix the results, but just to get the Brits to stay up late. The Yanks in DC can't bear to announce any mad cow news during the light of day. Too many awake reporters might show up. But how will they explain test results coming in at 9 pm DC time, when that's 2 am over in London Town?
But I digress ...
Update [2005-6-23 7:33:18 by Appalled]: Adding a new Question No. 3 below:
The mainstream media are starting to pull back the curtain on the federal government's mad-cow highjinks.
The AP put in a commendable contribution last Friday. In it, newswoman Libby Quaid knocks down a key government alibi: That a 1997 ban on feeding cow parts back to cows heads off at the pass any spread of mad cow disease.
Government officials often repeat their line that the feed ban is a "firewall" that prevents the spread of the dread disease. In fact, you'll probably hear that word - "Can you say `firewall?'" - when officials announce the latest retest results from their exceptional cow.
But reviews by the General Accountability Office have criticized the enforcement of the feed ban, saying that officials have overstated the ban's effectiveness. (I outlined some of the GAO's criticisms about the feed ban in the first diary in my series of diaries on mad cow.)
The GAO report is here in PDF format. There's a handy one-page summary at the beginning.
But Quaid also did a good job of hitting some key points. A couple snippets:
U.S. cattle are eating chicken litter, cattle blood and restaurant leftovers that could help transmit mad cow disease -- gaps in the U.S. defense that the Bush administration promised to close nearly 18 months ago.
"Once the cameras were turned off and the media coverage dissipated, then it's been business as usual, no real reform, just keep feeding slaughterhouse waste," said John Stauber, an activist and co-author of "Mad Cow USA: Could the Nightmare Happen Here?"
<snip>
The Food and Drug Administration promised to tighten feed rules shortly after the first case of mad cow disease was confirmed in the United States, in a cow in Washington in December 2003.
The FDA said in January 2004 it would ban blood, poultry litter and restaurant plate waste from cattle feed and require feed mills to use separate equipment for cattle feed.
But last July, the FDA scrapped those restrictions. Lester Crawford of the FDA said an international team of experts assembled by the Agriculture Department was calling for even stronger rules and the FDA would produce new restrictions in line with those recommendations.
Today, the FDA still has not done what it said it would do. The agency declined interviews, saying in a statement only that there is no timeline for new restrictions.
The only way we're going to see change is if folks ask some tough questions about what's going on. USDA officials, the beef industry and other interested folk have figured out that if they can confine their talking about mad cow to press releases issued during the night they can keep selling steak - and all the other things made with cows.
It's possible that the British tests on this cow will come back negative. But, seeing that there have been no earlier instances of a false positive mad cow reading on a Western blot test, that's unlikely.
So, here's a few questions that could greet the Coming Announcement:
1. Will the USDA adopt new testing procedures? And if so, when?
Consumers Union sent a letter to Ag Secretary Mike Johanns this week asking for a change in USDA's mad cow testing.
2. Are there any plans to go back and retest other cow brain samples? Followup: Why not?
3. Will USDA consider putting to use new testing technologies such as the CDI -- for "conformation dependent immunoassay -- test developed by Stanley Prusiner?
Prusiner is the scientist who won a Nobel Prize for his research into the proteins that cause mad cow and other similar brain diseases. Prusiner and his company say their test is easier to conduct, can be automated, can be used on smaller samples and is accurate when used on samples from varying parts of infected brains. More on the CDI test can be found here. Consumers Union asked USDA two years ago to consider adding the CDI test to its testing program.
4. A question that ought to go higher up the DC food chain (Any brave takers in the White House? How `bout Congress?) in the event the Brits' tests are positive: Is there any reason that USDA's testing should be trusted anymore, and should steps be taken to put mad cow testing in the hands of an agency that isn't held captive by agribusiness?
Watch for the specifics of the British tests. The Houston Chronicle reported that the Brits planned to run their own immunohistochemistry (IHC) tests, in addition to three versions of the Western blot test. For those who haven't been following along, USDA says its IHC tests on this cow were negative. If the Brits' IHC tests are positive, why doesn't that call into question USDA's entire testing regime?
5. If no other steps are being considered to establish independent testing of beef, will the government allow private companies to do their own testing? Followup: Why not?
6. When will a `peer review' of the USDA's testing lab in Ames, Iowa be conducted?
Guidelines from the American Association for Laboratory Accreditation suggest that the procedures of labs should be reviewed by outside independent scientists every two years. When was the last time the USDA's mad cow lab was reviewed? TEN YEARS ago, according to the USDA's inspector general. (page 51 of this document.)
7. Now that USDA's entire testing program has been called into question by these latest results, can anyone document whether any valid testing has been going on at all?
The USDA's inspector general, in her report from last summer, documented "an almost complete absence of available documentation supporting the development and evolution" of the USDA's mad cow surveillance program for the 13 years beginning in 1990.
