Posted on 04/13/2005 12:39:53 PM PDT by -=[_Super_Secret_Agent_]=-
Scientist Stands Behind Mad Cow Coverup Claim Offers To Take Lie Detector Test
April 12, 2005 By Dennis Bueckert Macleans, Canada
OTTAWA (CP) - A scientist and former inspector for the U.S Agriculture Department says he's willing to take a lie detector test to back his claim that his government is covering up mad cow disease.
Lester Friedlander, now a consumer advocate, was fired from his job as head of inspections at a large meat-packing plant in Philadelphia in 1995 after criticizing what he called unsafe practices.
Friedlander said he knows U.S. Agriculture Department veterinarians who sent suspect cow brains to private laboratories that confirmed mad cow infection, but samples from the same animals were cleared by government labs.
"It's several veterinarians that have given me similar stories about sending cow brains in," he said in an interview Tuesday. "It might be shocking for Canadians but it wouldn't be shocking for veterinarians that have worked for the USDA.
"I'm willing to back this up with a voice stress analysis test or even a lie detector test."
Friedlander wouldn't name the veterinarians, saying they still work for the Agriculture Department and would be fired if identified.
The department has denied Friedlander's allegations, which were first reported last week.
Rob McNabb, a spokesman for the Canadian Cattlemen's Association, said it does seem puzzling that four mad cow cases have been detected in Canadian-born cattle but none in U.S.-born cattle.
"It's true that the risk . . . is very similar, and it is surprising," he said.
There are 120 million cattle in the United States, 15 million in Canada.
"I guess there's always going to be people raising the question, 'How come it's 4-0?'," he said.
But McNabb wouldn't comment on Friedlander's allegations.
Michael Hansen, a scientist with the U.S. Consumers Union in Washington, said there's widespread suspicion about the testing of three suspected cases of mad cow in U.S. cattle.
Hansen said all tests came back negative in the three cases but the USDA used a rapid test based on immuno-histochemistry, not the Western blot test which is considered most reliable.
"Many of the top scientists think that's insane," he said of the use of the less reliable test.
He said there are also suspicions about a recent case in St. Angelo, Tex., when officials at an abattoir noticed a cow was staggering and wanted it tested, but permission was refused.
"The federal inspectors and the plant employees all wanted to test the animal and basically (the USDA) said, 'Nah, we're not going to do that.' So the animal was sent to rendering and was never tested."
Hansen said there appears to be a great lack of eagerness to detect mad cow in the United States.
A study by the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis three years ago concluded there was a 20 per cent chance that mad cow was present in the United States.
The U.S. government closed its border to live cattle imports from Canada in 2003 after a single Canadian cow tested positive for the disease. Three other Canadian cases have been confirmed since then, one in a Washington State cow that originally came from Canada.
The border was to reopen to live cattle March 7 this year but that was delayed by a challenge from a U.S. cattle industry lobby group.
Friedlander was in Ottawa to testify at a Commons committee examining proposed changes to the Canadian food regulation system.
Statistics don't apply to n=1.
Were all cow brains tested? or just two cows per year per state? or less?
"Scientist Stands Behind Mad Cow Coverup Claim"
I just wish people would leave my ex-wife alone, dammit!
Thag
Beef. It's what's not for dinner ...
... at this household, and hasn't been for years, and
won't be until the USDA allows individual producers to
have their herds tested (which has a slim chance of
happening) or radically expands random testing (which
has no chance of happening).
Is Japan still blockading US beef?
No venison eaten here either (CWD risk), even though
deer live on our property.
And it Bush's fault.
This guy was an inspector in Philadelphia. I wonder what he knows about the outbreak of Creutzfeld-Jacob Disease across the river at the now defunct Garden State Park. Several horse-racing fans who regularly ate there got the disease and died.
He would surely be aware of the story because the Philadelphia Inquirer reported it in front-page story.
I wish I could remember the name of the woman whose father died who is spearheading the effort to get a public investigation. She would want to talk to this guy.
Very scary. In regard to the New York wild deer herd found recently to be infected with related chronic-wasting disease, a hunter who seemed knowledgable said the "prions," the infectious agents remain in the soil.
I'm not an alarmist, and I continue to eat beef, but ... a friend of mine used to work in the blood products division of a major pharmaceutical company in North Carolina. She said they routinely rejected donated blood because it contained prions associated with CJD. This was only after a test was developed, which the Red Cross did not use at the time to screen its donors, to detect the prions. Even worse, before the test existed it was determined that several past donors to this firm's blood bank had subsequently died of CJD. I still think the risk of contracting mad-cow-related CJD is extremely low, but it's not zero.
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