`Downer Cows' Entering Meat Supply, USDA Inspector General Says

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=ah00ElDBTLj4&refer=us#

Feb. 2 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. government inspectors sometimes allow
cattle that can't walk to be slaughtered, contrary to rules aimed at
preventing mad-cow disease, the Agriculture Department's Inspector
General said in a report.

The inspector general said that at two of 12 slaughter plants
reviewed in an audit, 29 non-ambulatory cattle were slaughtered over
a 10-month period, and that 20 had been identified as ``downers''
with no records of acute injury.

This violates USDA policy that excludes ``all non- ambulatory
disabled cattle from the human food supply,'' the IG said as part of
a 118-page review of how the department enforces rules meant to
prevent mad-cow disease. The report, which said the USDA must also
improve record-keeping, was released on the Inspector General's Web
site.

The report was released at a delicate time in negotiations between
the U.S. and Japan over the safety of U.S. beef. Japan, normally the
biggest overseas customer for the meat, suspended imports on Jan. 20
after banned tissue was found in a shipment of veal. The Japanese
government had only allowed imports to resume in December, following
a two-year ban because of mad-cow disease.

Japan bought $1.7 billion in U.S. beef in 2003, before banning the
meat, along with scores of other nations. Japan's purchases accounted
for almost half of total U.S. beef shipments of $3.8 billion that
year.

The USDA ordered that downer cattle be excluded from the human food
supply after the first case of mad-cow disease was found in the U.S.
in December 2003. The brain-wasting livestock illness has a fatal
human form blamed for more than 150 deaths in the U.K., where the
disease first surfaced in the 1980s. The U.S. confirmed its second
BSE case in June, in an animal born in Texas.

The U.S. slaughters about 35 million head of cattle a year.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Daniel Goldstein in Washington at at dgoldstein1@bloomberg.net

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NOTE: Just one more reason I'm glad I'm vegan!
Tara :)
http://wwww.NaturalHealthCounseling.com