Hunt for infected cows leaves out 'slaughter auctions'

By Ray Rivera
Seattle Times staff reporter

	E-mail this article Print this article Search archive Other links Complete coverage of the mad-cow disease investigation

At the Toppenish Livestock Commission, one of the busiest livestock sales yards in Central Washington, a parade of dairy cows past their milking prime marches through each week on their way to becoming hamburger, jerky and other beef goods.

As investigators search for cows linked to the first U.S. case of mad-cow disease, these so-called "slaughter auctions" might seem like logical places to look.

Yet since a diseased Holstein was found in the Yakima Valley on Dec. 23, hundreds of milk cows in the region have been sold to slaughter with no checks to ensure they were not a part of the original Canadian herd shipped south with the infected animal.

Officials with the U.S. Department of Agriculture say they have no mechanism for doing such checks, which they say would be inefficient and have little chance of success.

Instead, the investigation has focused on a painstaking search of health certificates, birth records, shipping orders and sales receipts, said USDA spokesman Nolan Lemon. There are also interviews with dairy farmers, feedlot owners and anyone else who could help track the movement of the animals, including the auction houses.

Even if any of the cows being sought are sold to slaughter — as some likely have been — there is little risk they are infected with the disease, said USDA spokeswoman Julie Quick.

Indeed, officials have said the risk is so minimal that finding the rest of the herd is more important to restoring consumer confidence and export markets than to protecting the nation's food supply.

Still, the agency's failure to check slaughter-bound cows for possible links to the infected animal appears to at least one consumer advocate as out of step with its oft-stated goal of using an "abundance of caution."

"It seems quite extraordinary to me that they wouldn't be doing this," said Carol Tucker Foreman, a former USDA food-safety chief who now works for the Consumer Federation of America. "You would think that given the area where the animals were located after they came from Canada, there'd be every reason to focus attention on auctions and slaughterhouses in that part of Washington."

The stricken Holstein came to the U.S. as part of a herd of 81 cows in August 2001 from an Alberta dairy farm that was going out of business. It was there that investigators believe the diseased cow and the rest of the herd may have been exposed to feed tainted with the remains of infected cows — the primary source of mad-cow transmission. Investigators are tracing the cows, all of which they believe were sold to dairies in Central Washington. They're also tracing the source of the feed and trying to determine how many other cows may have been exposed to it.

The USDA's Quick said investigators had good leads on the herd's movements. But so far, only 13 have been positively traced. They include the diseased cow and nine others that went to the Sunny Dene Ranch in Mabton, Yakima County, and three others at an undisclosed dairy farm in Mattawa, Grant County.

The USDA believes another seven went to a dairy in the Quincy area in Grant County.

All three farms are under state quarantine, prohibiting any cows from being transported on or off the farms.

That leaves 61 that have yet to be found — a formidable task in a region with 150,000 milk cows.

Quick said checking every milk cow as it goes to slaughter would likely be fruitless. That's in part because many of the suspect cows may have lost the identifying eartags that helped to link the sick Holstein to the Alberta farm.

At the Toppenish auction house, 620 cows were sold to meat-processing plants last week, the majority Holstein cows from local dairy farms, said John Top, co-owner of the yard.

Buyers included meat wholesalers from Washington, Idaho, Oregon and California.

Top said they check each cow's current ownership records before putting it up for bid, but they have no way of knowing if any of the cows once belonged to the Canadian herd.

"Most of those cows are probably long gone anyway," Top said of the suspect herd.

Nationwide, dairy farms typically cull about a third of their herds each year, sending cows to slaughter that are no longer producing enough milk to pay for their feed. These cows are typically used in low-priced beef products.

Though it seems simple enough to provide a list of eartag numbers from the Canadian herd to the operators of the auction and slaughterhouses, even if there is only a minimal chance of finding a match, Quick said there also are privacy concerns.

"The numbers are associated with confidential business operations," she said. "We would need to work through our FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) office to ensure we're not turning over private information."

Foreman didn't buy that argument.

"Privacy, ah yes," she said. "We all know that comes before public health."

If not the slaughter auction operators, then why not give the list to the USDA inspectors at meat-processing plants, thereby sidestepping privacy issues, Foreman said. The USDA visually inspects all cattle before slaughter for signs of disease.

She said she plans to bring up the issue today in a meeting with U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman.

Veneman, meanwhile, has quietly declared the mad-cow case an "extraordinary emergency." The move was made primarily to secure emergency funds to continue the investigation. It also gives the USDA extra power to impose federal quarantines and to destroy and test animals linked to the diseased Holstein. So far, three farms are under state quarantine and about 578 calves and cows have been or are slated to be killed.

The declaration was made Jan. 6 with no public announcement, in part to avoid public alarm.

"They weren't going to make a big deal out it because it was basically a funding mechanism," said Mary Beth Lang, spokeswoman for the Washington State Department of Agriculture.

State officials also hope the declaration will ease the way for the USDA to reimburse the state for money it has spent on the investigation. The state estimated it has spent about $150,000 so far on additional staff, overtime and legal expenses. Federal officials did not have an estimate yesterday for how much they have spent.

Ray Rivera: 206-464-2926 or rayrivera@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company