Credibility at Issue in Mad Cow Case

A House committee on Tuesday questioned the government’s credibility in the first U.S. case of mad cow disease, quoting three witnesses who denied Agriculture Department claims that the infected Holstein was lame.

The worker who slaughtered the cow, the hauler who delivered it and an owner of the slaughterhouse all recalled seeing the infected animal on its feet, rather than it being the nonambulatory “downer” described by USDA officials.

In a letter to Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman, the House Government Reform Committee’s chairman and senior Democrat said the information challenges the department’s assertion that only downer cattle or cows with twitches indicating something wrong with their nervous systems need to be tested.

“If the new information is accurate, USDA’s surveillance program may need to be significantly expanded,” wrote committee chairman Thomas M. Davis (R-Va.) and Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles). “The new information also raises questions about USDA’s credibility. The American people need to have confidence in what USDA reports about the safety of the food supply.”

Within a week after the case’s confirmation Dec. 23, Veneman doubled to 40,000 the number of cattle to be tested annually for the disease. Since then, a panel she appointed and a Food and Drug Administration advisory committee have said the testing needs to go far beyond that.

Waxman said Tuesday that the FDA should start random sample testing of healthy cattle.

The department stood by its declarations that the animal was a downer, and that its surveillance did the job by finding what was the second known case of mad cow disease, formally bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, in North America. The first case turned up in Canada in May.