Agriculture Department Hid Mad Cow Results for MONTHS

[Celebration]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/26/national/26beef.html

The delay in confirming the United States' second case of mad cow disease seems to underscore what critics of the agency have said for a long time: that there are serious and systemic problems in the way the Agriculture Department tests animals for mad cow.

Until Friday, it was not public knowledge that an "experimental" test had been performed last November by an Agriculture Department laboratory on the brain of a cow suspected of having mad cow disease, and that the test had come up positive......snip

For seven months, all that was known was that a test on the same cow done at the same laboratory at roughly the same time had come up negative. The negative result was obtained using a test that the Agriculture Department refers to as its "gold standard." .......snip

"The laboratory folks just never mentioned it to anyone higher up," said Ed Loyd, an Agriculture Department spokesman. "They didn't know if it was valid or not, so they didn't report it."

The "experimental" test is used routinely in Japan and Britain!! How can they spin this one???

[Quakerfriend]

1. This has been going on for years, actually.

More than 15 cases of Mad Cow going back years in NJ- all had eaten at the same racetrack!

A good friend of one of the victims has been the one to bring the story out.

Sorry, no link!

[newswolf56]

2. Once again, the Bush Administration lies. This is...

...precisely why I stopped eating beef some time ago: my assumption that BushCo would lie (and do everything else within its power) to protect the profits of the agrobeef monopoly.

[journalist3072]

3. Hiding information

This seems to be a theme under the Bush administration....hide embarrassing information,or at least downplay it. It reminds me of how the Department of Health & Human Services watered down a report on racial disparities in health care. They edited the report, and made it less critical of the imbalanaces in health care, than the original report.

[ken-in-seattle]

4. current sec of ag is a wingnut son of a dairy farmer

http://www.religioustolerance.org/burn_aw1.htm

[DeepModem Mom]

5. OMG! These people do not govern, they do not protect public safety --

they do nothing except push their extremist agenda and enrich their supporters/enablers. May they, on some day of reckoning, receive their just reward.

[achtung_circus]

6. Well, I knew,

as did most Canadians in the beef industry. So did R-CALF USA. We who pay attention knew, but the news was not widely disseminated outside people who care about cows.

Most people only pay attention to their food supply when something goes wrong.

[proud2BlibKansan]

7. Remember the day when

ketchup was a vegetable?
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/040716.html

Good ole USDA. Hasn't changed a bit in 20 years.

[LiberalAndProud]

8. What did Johanns know and when did he know it?

Mike Johanns was sworn in as the 28th Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) on January 21, 2005.

[journalist3072]

9. Hiding Information- Part II

Isn't hiding, or purposefully providing misleading, information grounds for impeachment?

We need to start collecting all of the instances where under Bush, our government agencies have purposefully hidden or provided false or misleading information. Send it to your Senators.

Here are the instances I know of:

1. The White House pressured the Environmental Agency into editing it's report on the air quality in and around Ground Zero. The White House deleted cautionary statements, and inserted more reassuring ones. The problem was, they didn't have the information to back up those more reassuring statements.

2. The Department of HHS edited its own report on racial disparties in health care, making it so that the report was less critical of the racial imbalances in health care.


I say this is grounds for impeachment.

[Celebration]

10. also

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/jun2005/coon-j18.shtml

"A Bush aide who reportedly altered government climate reports to favor the interests of the oil industry has resigned from the administration to take a job at ExxonMobil, the world’s largest energy company and most fervent opponent of carbon emissions regulations. For the aide, Philip Cooney, the move completes a cycle in which he has served the interests of the oil giants both in and out of government."

With no science experience, he just omitted paragraphs from the report and shaded other opinions by wording them.

Then there are all the lies about Iraq, etc.

[journalist3072]

11. It just doesn't stop, does it? n/t