Mad cow is the symptom

Progressive, The, Feb, 2004

Consumers Union noted that even today "rendered cattle remains can be fed to swine and chickens, and that rendered swine and chicken remains can, in turn, be fed back to cattle."

Stauber has a simple solution. "The feed rules that the United States must adopt can be summarized this way: You might not be a vegetarian, but the animals you eat must be," he wrote.

But the meat industry, still hidebound, stuck to its guns. "One of our philosophies is minimal government involvement and letting the industry address these things," Terry Stokes, the head of the cattlemen's association, told The New York Times on January 1.

For its part, the American Meat Institute denied there were any health concerns. "This case poses no risk to consumers," said J. Patrick Boyle, president of that organization.

Like the meat industry, the Bush Administration downplayed the risk. There was the President himself boasting at a press conference after Christmas that he ate beef at his holiday meal. That was reminiscent of the British agriculture official who, in front of the cameras, ate a hamburger and had his young daughter eat a hamburger at the height of the Mad Cow epidemic them. (It was also reminiscent of Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien eating a steak on TV after the Mad Cow was found in Alberta.)

But the USDA is well practiced at spinning the health of the current U.S. food supply. And there is a reason for that: High officials at the agency come from industry--and represent the needs of industry. Veneman's spokeswoman is Alisa Harrison, who used to be director of public relations for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, one of the main lobbyists against tighter Mad Cow regulations, as Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation, pointed out in The New York Times on January 2. Veneman's chief of staff is Dale Moore, who was "previously the chief lobbyist for the cattlemen's association," Schlosser notes.

There are others, such as Chuck Lambert, "formerly the chief economist for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, now deputy undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programs," according to the nonprofit group Public Campaign.

Veneman herself served on the board of directors of Calgene, a company that manufactured genetically engineered tomatoes. She also was a member of the International Policy Council on Agriculture, Food, and Trade, "a group funded by Cargill, Nestle, Kraft, and Archer Daniels Midland," notes the Center for Responsive Politics.

The beef industry knows it has a friend in Bush, and it greases the wheels of government.

"The number one recipient of campaign dollars from the meat processing and livestock industries so far in the 2004 election, as well as in the 2000 elections, is President George W. Bush, with a total of nearly $880,000," says Public Campaign in a January 6 statement. Three of Bush's biggest fundraisers, who brought in more than $100,000 to his coffers, own large ranches, the group notes.

"I love those cattlemen!" That's what Bush told the head of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, The New Fork Times reported.