USDA Fought Retesting Of BSE-Infected Mad Cow - WP

[hatrack]

Agriculture Department officials overruled field scientists' recommendation to retest an animal that was suspected of harboring mad cow disease last year because they feared a positive finding would undermine confidence in the agency's testing procedures, the department's inspector general said yesterday.

After protests from the inspector general, the specimen was sent to England for retesting and produced the nation's second confirmed case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), also known as mad cow disease. The incident was described in an audit report assessing the department's surveillance program for the disease.

The report details why scientists at the National Veterinary Services Laboratories concluded that a sample from a Texas animal should be tested with other techniques following initial inconclusive findings. It adds that top officials at the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) told them not to do the additional tests.

When officials from the inspector general's office met with the head of APHIS, they were told that the protocol followed by the agency was the international "gold standard" and nothing more was needed, the report adds. Nonetheless, the sample was later sent to England for a different set of tests and was found to have the mad cow infection.

EDIT

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/02/AR2006020202240.html

Let me repeat what many of us were saying after Katrina - we are on our own.

[Mnemosyne]

1. Filthy rotten... n/t

[phantom power]

2. They'll keep this kind of nuttiness up, until...

the public hits some "100th monkey" threshold, and suddenly it will become a public scare, and beef sales will drop like a brick. Then, the beef industry poo-bahs will all hold an emergency press conference, and wonder aloud to themselves "gosh! what could have happened!"

I'm already about a gnat's ass away from deciding to not buy any more beef, or maybe only organic beef, since it's diet is less dangerous. In fact, I just sent an email to my wife about it.

[Nihil]

3. .. until the people either wake up or die.

> suddenly it will become a public scare

There again, given the control of money over the media, it may never be
a "public" scare, just a minor event to those in the know ...

I've been buying organic beef (and chicken) for the last few years
(unless we've been eating at a restaurant .. which is rare these days
seeing as how I've been unemployed since before Christmas ...).

The simple public will not see any of this stuff.
The simple public only see the current series of "Big Brother" (or maybe
"American Idol" over there?) and the most recent sports news. The rest
of the world's events can be summed up with "something else happened
somewhere overseas" and so is ignored.

The sad thing is that the ignorant will overpower the knowledgable
by simple weight of numbers.

I try to keep my kids educated in science and practical affairs but see
a sea of ignorance surrounding them. Some days I think I'd be better off
showing them how to cook hedgehogs, blackbirds and stray humans as that's
likely to be the future if people keep believing the crap from the official
government agencies ...