Diseased animals are being marketed for food - Medicine & Health

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), March, 2002 by Gene Bauston

In 1998, Farm Sanctuary and Michael Baur filed our petition, in an attempt to remedy this situation. We urged the USDA to prohibit downed and diseased animals from entering the human food supply. The USDA formally denied our petition in 1999, asserting in writing that the law "clearly provide[s] for the slaughter and processing of diseased animals for human food." Since receiving the official denial, we have corresponded with officials at the USDA, attempting to persuade the agency to rethink its denial of our petition. While officials at USDA have expressed verbal support for a "no downer" policy, it continues to allow downed animals to be slaughtered for human food. It now appears that our only means of ending this irresponsible practice is through a lawsuit.

In the wake of emerging livestock ailments such as mad cow disease and foot and mouth disease, we hoped that USDA would recognize the importance of protecting humans and animals from their spread. Ironically, the USDA's policy allowing downed animals into the food supply has the opposite effect. It stimulates the transport and marketing of diseased livestock and encourages the livestock industry to engage in irresponsible and inhumane practices. Downed animals should not be transported and marketed for human food. They should be humanely euthanized or provided with appropriate veterinary attention.

Treating downed livestock as inanimate commodities, and dragging them to slaughter, does more than cause intolerable suffering and threaten human health--it diminishes us as human beings. This kind of irresponsible cruelty and abuse cannot be tolerated in a civilized nation.

Gene Bauston is cofounder of Farm Sanctuary, a national nonprofit animal protection organization.