Mad Cow Proposals Lead to Fight

In the wake of confirmation that a U.S.-reared animal had mad cow disease, California cattle ranchers and grocers are battling consumer, health and labor groups over legislation aimed at allaying fears about tainted meat.

One lawmaker wants to require that beef carry labels showing its country of origin, and to force health authorities to make detailed public announcements about recalls of all contaminated meat and poultry. Another wants to permit ranchers to voluntarily test their cattle for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, so-called mad cow disease.

Federal regulations bar testing, labeling and detailed disclosure about recalls. Foes of the state effort say that federal law takes precedence and that courts would strike down any state statutes. But consumer groups, saying the federal government is soft on meat producers, hope California can force the issue by approving state laws that might pressure the federal government to act.

“It is time for agriculture to step into the 21st century and realize they are part of the larger society,” said state Sen. Mike Machado, a Democrat from the San Joaquin Valley town of Linden. “We need to do whatever we can to say that we have the best-quality and safest food.”

Machado is a third-generation farmer whose father and uncle raise cattle. But he is angering influential agricultural organizations and many cattle ranchers with plans to reintroduce a cattle-testing bill he offered unsuccessfully last year.

A country-of-origin labeling measure, pushed by Assemblyman Paul Koretz (D-West Hollywood) and backed by consumer groups, labor and some farmers, is pending in the state Senate. A recall disclosure bill, by Sen. Jackie Speier (D-Hillsborough), supported by county and city public health officers, is set for a vote in an Assembly committee Tuesday.

Most Democratic legislators are siding with labor and consumer groups in favor of labeling and disclosure. Republicans are lining up against both, and are expected to align themselves with much of the cattle industry to fight testing.

“It unnecessarily sensationalizes the disease and it sends a message to consumers that this [mad cow disease] is a legitimate food safety threat in this country. We know that it is not,” said Ben Higgins, executive vice president of the California Cattlemen’s Assn.

Higgins said the cattle industry and the U.S. Department of Agriculture have taken steps to combat BSE. Most notably, the government has banned cattle feed that includes cattle parts, believing that is the main way the disease is transmitted.

Consumer advocates and some public health experts believe more should be done. Consumer’s Union, for example, has called for testing of all cattle older than 20 months, more stringent feed requirements and a tracking system for all cattle from birth to slaughter.

“The USDA is putting a whole lot of effort into not looking for BSE,” said Elisa Odabashian of the nonprofit Consumers Union, which is backing all three measures in the Legislature.

More than 150 people in Europe, mostly in Britain, have died of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a condition attributed to eating beef from an animal with BSE. The disease leads to brain damage and invariably is fatal.

The concerns of consumer advocates and some legislators were heightened last week after federal officials confirmed that a Texas-reared cow that died seven months ago had the brain-wasting infection -- making it the first domestic animal proven to have had mad cow disease.

But at a convention of the California Cattlemen’s Assn. here last week, the talk was anything but gloomy. Beef producers said one case of mad cow -- discovered among 400,000 diseased and injured cattle tested by federal authorities last year -- shows the safety of beef. They noted that the animal never entered the human food supply.

“There are some people on the fringes of the Legislature who don’t care about facts and are headline-grabbing,” said Mark Nelson, a cattle rancher near Sacramento and president of the cattlemen’s association.

John Harris, owner of Harris Ranch Beef Co., called the legislative attention “frustrating, because the American beef supply is safe.” He said additional steps, such as tracking, should be taken nationally, not state by state.

Health experts and consumer advocates cite events that they say reveal weak links in the system of public notification about tainted meat.

In September 2002, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and California Department of Health Services entered into an agreement in which the federal government said it would provide the state with details about meat and poultry recalls -- on the condition that the state promise to keep secret key information such as the names of stores that had sold tainted meat.

The USDA refused to provide California with any information about recalls unless state officials agreed to the nondisclosure requirement. California was one of a dozen states that signed such agreements. The issue came to the public’s attention after the December 2003 discovery that a cow imported from Canada and slaughtered in Washington state had BSE.

Two weeks later, the USDA issued a voluntary recall aimed at recovering all 10,000 pounds of beef slaughtered at the plant on the day the diseased animal was killed. Some of that meat was sold to restaurants in several Northern California counties.

In an interview, Alameda County health officer Dr. Anthony Iton recalled that in early January 2004, almost a month after the initial discovery, state health officials informed him that five restaurants in the Oakland area had received soup bones from the lot of tainted beef. BSE is thought to reside in bones and some other tissue.

Iton immediately dispatched inspectors to the restaurants. But it was too late; soup made from the bones had been eaten. He was particularly disturbed to learn that none of the restaurant owners had received written notice of the recall and that federal inspectors did not visit them until 10 days after the recall.

Whether anyone was harmed is not known; the incubation period for variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob is years.

In testimony before the Legislature, Iton called the USDA recall process a “sham,” and accused the state of entering into a “Faustian bargain” with the federal government. “This is a real problem -- to sit there and not be able to say anything,” Iton said.

Speier responded with her bill, SB 611. “This is all about the public’s right to know whether there is tainted meat in the food supply,” she said.

The bill would require the California Department of Health Services and local health officers to release names of stores and restaurants that have sold tainted meat or poultry. Restaurant lobbyists won an exemption from disclosure if they have bought meat that later is recalled but have not served it.

County health officers are endorsing the bill, and no lobby group is openly opposing it. Cattle ranchers say they are neutral. But when the Senate approved the measure a month ago, all 15 Senate Republicans voted against it.

Among the bill’s critics is Assemblyman David Cogdill (R-Modesto). He said he wants to “balance public safety” while not being “overly alarming” and damaging the industry.

Speier won legislative approval of a similar bill last year. But Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed it, saying he preferred that California enter into a new agreement with the federal government that would allow public disclosure.

Almost a year later, the Department of Agriculture has not committed to reworking its agreement with California. State Health Services spokeswoman Lea Brooks said in a statement that “the health department is watching with interest” a pending Department of Agriculture proposal that would permit more disclosure.

The Schwarzenegger administration has not taken a stand on Speier’s bill, and state Department of Food and Agriculture Secretary A.G. Kawamura declined through spokesman Jay Van Rein to discuss issues of testing and public disclosure.

“If you need contacts for industry groups,” Van Rein added, the department would be “happy to help find someone who can give the industry’s perspective.”

Speier, told of the comment, was taken aback, and likened Van Rein’s referral to a government health official referring questions about cancer to the tobacco industry.

“Preposterous,” Speier said.

Though farm groups are neutral on Speier’s bill, they have joined with the California Grocers Assn. to oppose Koretz’s country-of-origin labeling bill, AB 1058. Its main backers include the Consumer Federation of California, unions representing butchers and retail clerks and some farmers.

Joaquin Contente, a dairy rancher in Hanford and president of the California Farmers Union, called the legislation a “no-brainer.” Consumers would opt for U.S. beef, believing standards are more stringent, he said.

Koretz’s bill, which is limited to beef, exempts restaurants from having to disclose the country of origin of meat they serve. Lawmakers said the exemption was inserted at the request of restaurateurs.

Harris Ranch lobbyist Robert Fox, questioning the bill’s reasoning, testified before a Senate committee last week that the bill would not achieve its goal of informing consumers, given that restaurants account for half the beef sold in California.