Untitled Document
The US government's elaborate cover-up of mad cow dangers in the United States
has begun to unravel. Twenty-four hours after our successful protest with Organic
Consumers Association of a US Department of Agriculture mad cow safety stunt in
St. Paul, USDA Secretary Johanns was forced to admit that a cow tested last year
and declared safe in fact DID have mad cow disease.
I've often charged that the USDA is hiding US cases of mad cow by using the
wrong testing procedures and by failing to conduct food safety tests on millions
of animals and this announcement proves it. USDA finally used the correct test
-- the Western Blot test -- on this suspect animal and it has proven to be a
case of mad cow disease.
We at the Center for Media and Democracy will continue to work hard on this
issue until the US goes beyond lip-service and does what the EU countries and
Japan have done: implement a science-based food-safety testing program that
tests millions of cattle a year. And, the US must put in place a REAL "fire-wall
feed ban" that would stop the current feeding of billions of pounds of
blood, meat, bone meal, animal fat and poultry feces to cattle in the US. These
on-going feed practices amplify and spread mad cow disease.
The US news media has mostly failed to expose mad cow risks in the US. Instead,
as with so many other issues, the corporate media has become an echo chamber
for industry and government, confusing the public into thinking that the correct
steps have been taken. The June 12 New York Times contains two relevant articles
that I'll use to make my point.
The New York Times article on mad cow disease refers (without mentioning names
of us and other critics) to ongoing condemnation of US policies, something that
Sheldon Rampton and I began in 1997 with our prescient book Mad Cow USA. Our
book correctly predicted that mad cow disease would appear here because rather
than take the steps necessary to stop it, government and industry were (and
are) merely misleading the media and the public with spin and deception. The
New York Times could and should run a front page expose' revealing the gross
failures of US animal feeding and testing policies and the ongoing risks they
pose to both the US food and blood supply. But instead this New York Times article
makes it sound like the USDA is behaving responsibly rather than engaging in
an ongoing cover-up.
The second New York Times article looks at lobbyist Rick Berman's PR front
groups. Rick Berman fuels his pro-industry activism with millions of dollars
from the food, booze and tobacco industries]. His major websites are Activist
Cash and Consumer Freedom. The New York Times used our SourceWatch website to
research Berman and cites our exclusive report on his funding sources.
Berman's front group has smeared and attacked us for years, as in this December
2003 news release: "Reckless activists including John Stauber are already
using the USDA's mad-cow disease announcement as a hook to create panic over
America's food supply. Minutes after USDA Secretary Ann Veneman's Tuesday news
conference, Stauber declared on CNN: 'My presumption is that mad cow disease
is spread throughout North America ... There are more cases. No doubt about
it.' "
At least Berman quoted me correctly. Typically his information is riddled with
factual errors and out-of-context quotes but this time he got it right.