AskFarmerBrown :

"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

"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.