Ag secretary resists banning downer cattle

WASHINGTON — The agriculture secretary on Thursday resisted calls at a Senate hearing for a complete ban on so-called downer cattle — those unable to walk — from entering the food supply.

In the wake of the largest beef recall in U.S. history, USDA Secretary Edward Schafer announced new steps to ensure the safety of the U.S. meat supply, including more random slaughterhouse inspections and immediate audits of the 23 plants that supply meat for federal programs, primarily school lunches.

He rejected senators' calls to completely ban from slaughter any cattle unable to walk, contending they occasionally could enter the food supply safely, in accordance with USDA rules, after an additional inspection by a veterinarian. "Downer" cows are at higher risk of carrying E. coli and salmonella bacteria and of having the wasting neurological illness known as "mad cow disease."

The standoff came at a Senate subcommittee hearing triggered by practices at Westland/Hallmark Meat of Chino, Calif., after 143 million pounds of beef processed there was recalled, including 50 million pounds shipped to school cafeterias. Undercover video shot by the Humane Society of the United States showed downer cows being forced to slaughter by workers who poked them with electric prods or rolled them with forklifts.

"No one wants another Westland/Hallmark situation anywhere in the country," said Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis. "We cannot allow a single downer cow to enter our food supply under any circumstances. We need to have tougher standards, round-the-clock surveillance and stiffer penalties."

Schafer resisted on all counts, insisting that current rules, when followed, are adequate.

Patrick Boyle, president of the American Meat Institute, a trade association, called the Westland/Hallmark plant "an anomaly, an extreme circumstance."

"There are lots of reasons an animal goes down ... but it's not per se a food-safety or ... [mad-cow-disease] reason," he said.

Humane Society President Wayne Pacelle countered that animals can fall because of underlying neurological problems that veterinarians at the slaughterhouses are not equipped to detect. Noting that downer cattle carry a higher risk of disease in part because they "are wallowing in manure, it's all over their hides," Pacelle echoed Kohl's call to ban them completely.

"It's a small pool of animals — why are we taking the risk?"

Government regulations prohibit slaughtering cattle for food if the animals cannot stand or walk on their own. An inspecting veterinarian had said the Hallmark cattle were healthy enough to be used for food, but they subsequently collapsed. Federal regulations require that such animals be re-examined by a veterinarian and slaughtered separately, but that apparently was not done, officials said.

USDA officials and sympathetic lawmakers said repeatedly that there was no public-health threat related to the massive recall, while other senators stressed that there is no way of knowing.

"We believe that the food supply is safe," Schafer insisted.

"Listen, Mr. Secretary," said Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, cutting him off, "the fact is that we don't know if the animals portrayed in this video were sick or not. Unless you can inform me differently, the fact is we don't know. ... We're faced with the possibility that people could become sick."

Complied from Los Angeles Times, The Associated Press and The Washington Post reports.