So what are you having for supper?
Gordon p

OTTAWA (CP) - A scientist and former inspector for the U.S Agriculture Department says he's willing to take a lie detector test to back his claim that his government is covering up mad cow disease.

Lester Friedlander, now a consumer advocate, was fired from his job as head of inspections at a large meat-packing plant in Philadelphia in 1995 after criticizing what he called unsafe practices.

Friedlander said U.S. Agriculture Department veterinarians sent suspect cow brains to private laboratories that confirmed they were infected with mad cow disease, but samples from the same animals were cleared by government labs.

He wouldn't reveal the names of the veterinarians, saying in an interview that they still work for the Agriculture Department and would be fired if identified.

The department has denied Friedlander's allegations, first made in a speech last week in Edmonton.

He's in Ottawa to testify at a Commons committee examining proposed changes to the Canadian food regulation system.

I'm unshocked. Frankly, I thought the fact that that the FDA was suing to prevent VOLUNTARY testing by beef producers in this country was a little suspicious... seems to me that they might be afraid of what testing would show!

Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber (authors of "Trust Us, We're Experts" and "Toxic Sludge is Good For You", which are both fascinating) have written a book on the subject... It's even available for free online! Check it out: http://www.prwatch.org/books/madcow.html

The technology to test every cow is out there. England, Australia and Japan( I believe ) test 100% of their cows and the test is relatively cheap. Not sure why our cattle industry won't do the same. Unfortunately, since the prion takes 10-15 years to manifest as disease in humans there probably won't be any outrage or call for action for another decade when scattered cases start cropping up. I have avoided beef products (bologne, beef sausages and especially T bone steaks (they have the spinal cor tissue called paraganglia within the meat!))

The technology to test every cow is out there. England, Australia and Japan( I believe ) test 100% of their cows and the test is relatively cheap. Not sure why our cattle industry won't do the same.


Because the USDA has successfully fought to PREVENT the beef industry from testing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/10/national/nationalspecial2/10COW.html?ex=1113537600&en=8fed700f1101def8&ei=5070&ex=1082610259&ei=1&en=f56e2cdf9702a18f

I wonder what they're afraid testing would reveal!

Please go to the political threads.

Here is a little more on this issue.

U.S. denies having 2 BSE cases in 1997
Last Updated Apr 14 2005 08:18 AM MDT
CBC News
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Agriculture admits there were problems with the samples taken from two cows in 1997, but insists the animals did not have mad cow disease.

Ron DeHaven, administrator of the USDA's Animal and Plant Inspection Service, said that while key parts of the animals' brains needed to make an accurate diagnosis were missing and not tested, it was better to test what they had.

"We had two choices: run the tests with the samples that we had, or not run them at all," DeHaven said "If we had something to hide, we could make an argument for not running the samples at all.

"In this case, we chose to run the samples with the tissues that we had and subject them to three different tests to compensate for the fact that we may not have the perfect tissues."

For years Canadian cattle producers have been suspicious about U.S. claims that it has only found one cow affected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy – and that the one animal had been born in Canada. The cow, sent south from Leduc, was diagnosed in December 2003 in Washington state.

Three other Canadian-born animals have tested positive for BSE. The first case, confirmed in May 2003, saw the U.S. shut its border to Canadian beef. It was to reopen last month, but an American ranchers' group obtained a temporary injunction.

CBC News uncovered a USDA video showing what USDA veterinarians feared might be two cases of mad cow disease in the U.S.

The official tests were negative. But CBC news uncovered documents showing key areas of the cow's brain, in both cases, were never tested.

It's the ALIENS!!!! They're coming to get us, and use us for food!!!! We knew this, and have been trying to genetically manipulate our cattle to replace the human food supply with cattle by cooperating with the Alien Grays in the all of these cattle mutilation cases. If we can't figure out how to make the Aliens accept eating cattle, the human race is doomed. Mad Cow must be some accidental byproduct from all of the genetic experimentation.

Do you have a link for that?

Some of my teeth are pointed and made to tear meat. I figure if I have them, I am designed to eat meat so I shall continue to feast on beef.

Please go to the political threads.

Why? This is a health and nutrition issue, and not a political issue... seems appropriately located to me...

I can't imagine that a guy who was fired by the U.S. government ten years ago might still have a "beef" with the agency that fired him. But, "secret" evidence, and "secret" witnesses? He must assume that the folks hearing his claims already HAVE "mad cow" disease.

You actually have more of a chance of being struck by lightning than eating beef tainted with BSE, whether it be Canadian, US, Japanese,........

I heard they are covering up UFO and alien cases, too. I got a tinfoil hat around here somewhere, I think.

Whatever you do, if you happen to accidentally eat some beef, wash your mouth out thoroughly with unchlorinated spring water. Do NOT use fluoride toothpaste, especially without either a tinfoil hat or a pyramid hat, or better yet a tinfoil covered pyramid hat.

They have JFK's brain wired into a computer at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, where he and Elvis are working on a solution now.

AskFarmerBrown (http://www.askfarmerbrown.org/stories_LF.htm) :

"Today, Dr. Friedlander is a strict vegetarian and an outspoken critic of the U.S. meat industry. This drastic turnaround came to Dr. Friedlander after seeing too many animals cruelly mishandled and tormented at slaughter, too many missteps in the inspection process, and too many slip-ups — sacrificing both human and animal welfare.


After revealing the secrets of the USDA's meat inspection process on national television, the USDA handed him his walking papers. Now he spends his days speaking out about the drastic shortcomings in the Federal food inspection system, in hopes of enlightening the public and ultimately reforming the cruel agribusiness machine."

AnimalRights.net (http://www.animalrights.net/archives/year/2004/000001.html)

"The reality is that although fears of a widespread human outbreak might have been warranted in the mid-1990s, by the end of the decade it was clear that transmission of the disease between cows and human beings through the consumption of tainted meat was actually quite difficult.

But don't tell that to former USDA veterinarian Lester Friedlander who had one of the more idiotic statements about Mad Cow Disease. Friedlander has rightly campaigned for years for a ban on downer animals -- a ban which the Bush administration put in place after the announcement of the discovery of the Mad Cow-infected calf. Friedlander was widely quoted in news stories about the Mad Cow calf, but showed his ignorance in responding to USDA Secretary Ann Veneman's statement that, "I plan to serve beef for my Christmas dinner and we remain confident in the safety of our food supply." According to a Go Vegan Texas!, Freidlander's response was,


'She might as well kiss her ass goodbye, then.'


What an ignorant statement. That would be like claiming that people should stop eating vegetables due to Hepatitis A outbreaks (which are a much bigger threat to human health than Mad Cow disease)."



Sounds like a crusader to me.

Some of my teeth are pointed and made to tear meat. I figure if I have them, I am designed to eat meat so I shall continue to feast on beef.

"It’s amazing how many seemingly intelligent people, to justify their meat-eating, open their mouths, point at their teeth, and say something about “canines” as a means of defending a habit that is ecologically devastating, cruel to animals, and likely to kill them. Leaving aside how different human “canines” are from the canine teeth of carnivores (I really wonder if these people have ever even looked at the long, dagger-like canines of a dog or tiger), every natural carnivore has an array of other physiological properties that do not mirror ours. For example, unlike humans, all natural meat-eaters, such as dogs and rats, manufacture their own vitamin C, whereas we need to consume vitamin C in fruits and vegetables; true carnivores perspire through their tongues rather than through their skin; natural meat-eaters have sharp, pointy front teeth, sharp and jagged molars, and a tooth-bone density many times greater than that of humans, which enables them to crunch through the bones of their prey; carnivores have no digestive enzymes in their saliva at all, and their digestive acids are many times more acidic than those of humans, so the bacteria from rotting flesh won’t kill them; natural meat-eaters have jaws that move only vertically, instead of in a grinding motion as ours do, and they don’t chew their food—they just rip and swallow; carnivores have claws to rip their prey apart instead of sensitive fingers for plucking; they have an intestinal tract only three times their body length to eject rotting flesh quickly; and natural meat-eaters never develop atherosclerosis, no matter how much saturated fat and cholesterol they consume—this is the disease that kills almost as many human beings in the industrialized world as all other causes of death combined. And the list of physiological differences between people and natural meat-eaters goes on and on."

-from PETA's Veganism FAQ

Just something to think about.

-from PETA's Veganism FAQ

To me, that says it all right there in that sentence.

To me, that says it all right there in that sentence.

To me this says that you missed the point entirely. Just because you consider the source contentious doesn't make the information any less valid.