Madison Capital Times: Veneman was put in charge of the Department of Agriculture by President Bush because he knew the longtime advocate for the genetic modification of food, factory farming and free trade policies that favor big agribusiness over family farmers and consumers could be counted on to choose the side of business interests over the public interest.
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Mad Cow Out Of The Barn
Now that the first case of mad cow disease in the
United States has been confirmed, Secretary of
Agriculture Ann Veneman's subservience to the
agribusiness interests she once served as a lobbyist
is no longer merely troublesome. It's dangerous.
Veneman was put in charge of the Department of
Agriculture by President Bush because he knew the
longtime advocate for the genetic modification of
food, factory farming and free trade policies that
favor big agribusiness over family farmers and
consumers could be counted on to choose the side of
business interests over the public interest.
Protecting Business Over Consumers
Veneman did just that when she announced that mad cow
disease had been found in the United States. Instead
of offering a realistic response to the news, she was
still doing public relations for agribusiness. She
declared the case was isolated, praised the USDA for a
"swift and effective" response and discounted any risk
to human health.
Unfortunately, because of the USDA's lax approach to
inspections and regulation, Venemen has no idea
whether she is right.
What Veneman does know is that BSE, or bovine
spongiform encephalopathy—nicknamed mad cow disease—is
a far more serious matter than she let on. She knows
that this disease devastated the British beef industry
in the late 1980s and 1990s, requiring the slaughter
of millions of cows and the expenditure of billions of
dollars. She knows the human form of mad cow disease
so far has killed more than 130 people in Britain. And
she knows that an isolated case of BSE in Canada
earlier this year led countries around the world,
including the United States, to stop importing that
country's beef.
An Ounce Of Prevention
Above all, Veneman knows that the USDA is not doing
the inspections that are necessary to expose the
presence of BSE in the United States and that could
prevent its spread. While the agriculture secretary
was talking about how unlikely it was that the
diseased beef would end up on food shelves, she
neglected to mention that the United States has never
put into place the sort of stringent inspection
program that exists in many countries in Europe and
Asia, where all animals are tested before beef is made
available for human consumption.
At every turn, Veneman has been "extremely
disingenuous," according to Madisonian John Stauber,
co-author of Mad Cow USA."My presumption," he says,
"is that mad cow disease is spread throughout North
America at some level, but because our testing program
is so inadequate we have not identified it."
The world community tends to trust Stauber's analysis
over that of Veneman's. Within hours after it was
learned that a sick animal had been found outside a
slaughterhouse in Washington state, close to a dozen
countries suspended U.S. beef imports.
At this critical point, Stauber and other public
health activists are more credible sources than
Veneman for honest analysis of how widespread the
threat could be and how it can be contained. Why?
Because, unlike Veneman, the public health activists
are relying on Food and Drug Administration data.
Detecting The Spread Of Mad Cow
According to Stauber, an FDA memo in 1997 predicted
that if a single case of mad cow disease were found in
the United States, and serious steps were immediately
taken to prevent the spread of the disease, inspectors
might still uncover 299,000 infected cows over the
next decade. That is because beef blood, beef fat and
other animal proteins—which can spread the disease—are
still fed to calves across the nation. Only as those
calves come to maturity will the full extent of the
spread of BSE be known.
By failing to acknowledge genuine concerns regarding
BSE, and by failing even now to respond to those
concerns, Veneman has failed U.S. farmers and
consumers. She should be ashamed, and the rest of us
should be looking for better sources of information
about the safety of our food supply.
This editorial originally appeared on Saturday,
December 27, 2003 in The Capital Times (Madison,
Wisconsin).