Man Who Killed the Mad Cow Has Questions of His Own
February 3, 2004
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
Shooting a cow turned Dave Louthan into a crusader.
On Dec. 9, at Vern's Moses Lake Meats in Moses Lake, Wash.,
Mr. Louthan killed the only mad cow found in the United
States.
Two weeks later, he says, he was dismissed after four years
as Vern's slaughterer when he talked to the television
crews outside and told them he was sure the cow, ground
into hamburger, had already been eaten. The plant's owners
did not return calls seeking comment.
"I got a big mouth," he said in a telephone interview.
Since then, it has gotten bigger. Using borrowed computers
- he has none of his own, only "a microwave and a TV that
gets four channels" - he started writing to newspapers, and
is to testify today before the Washington State
Legislature.
Contrary to reports from the federal Department of
Agriculture, he asserts that the cow he killed was not too
sick to walk. And it was caught not by routine
surveillance, he says, but by "a fluke": he killed it
outdoors because he feared it would trample other cows
lying prostrate in its trailer, and the plant's testing
program called for sampling cows killed outside only.
"Mad cows aren't downers," he said. "They're up and they're
crazy." The Agriculture Department disputes his account.
Dr. Kenneth Petersen, a food safety official, faxed copies
of the Dec. 9 inspector's report saying the cow was
"sternal," or down on its chest.
Mr. Louthan said he believed the government changed the
report on Dec. 23, during the panic at Vern's when a
positive test was found. The "smoking gun," he said, is
that it is the only one on the page marked "unable to get
temp" while other cows' temperatures were recorded. It is
easy, he said, to get a rectal temperature from a downed
cow but hard from a jumpy one.
Dr. Petersen said that he had no indication the records
were altered and that the veterinarian had told him the
animal was lying so close to the trailer wall that a
thermometer could not be used.
In his new role as bloody-handed industry critic, Mr.
Louthan argues that too few cattle are tested for mad cow
to say with certainty that beef is safe. "One mad cow is a
scare, but two is an epidemic," he said. "They absolutely,
positively don't want to find another."
Ed Curlett, a department spokesman, said about 83 a month
were tested at Vern's from October to December. (The
testing began only in October, when the government starting
paying $10 a brain sample.)
The department has not changed last year's plans to test
40,000 cows nationwide this year, out of 30 million
slaughtered. Janet Riley, a spokeswoman for the American
Meat Institute, which represents slaughterhouses, called
that "plenty sufficient from a statistical standpoint."
Mr. Louthan, who lives across the street from Vern's, said
that the slaughtering was "still going like crazy" but that
an inspector in the plant told him no more mad cow testing
was being done.
Dr. Petersen said he did not know if Vern's was testing.
On Jan. 4, an angry Mr. Louthan started sending e-mail
messages to all the inspectors on the department's Web
site, asking, "Are you just going to sit there with your
hands in your pockets?" and accusing Agriculture Secretary
Ann M. Veneman of lying when she said American beef was
safe.
Since then, he said, green department cars have parked
outside his house "trying to scare me."
He gave the name and number of one agent who he said had
told him to get in the car and ordered him to stop sending
e-mail. The agent refused to speak to a reporter, but a
spokesman said Mr. Louthan had asked that they talk in the
agent's car and the agent did not intimidate, harass or
argue with him.
Mr. Louthan is no animal-rights champion. His good-old-boy
braggadocio and Texas drawl make him sound like a
parking-lot matador with a knocking gun - a tube with a
blank pistol cartridge that drives a bolt into the brain.
Killing is "really fun," and beats deboning, which he calls
"girls' work."
"I'm fast, I'm efficient, and I know how to get in through
their flight zones," he said, meaning the way nervous cows
turn to flee.
At Vern's, he killed about 20 old dairy cows a day and
buffaloes on Thursdays, along with the odd ostrich, emu and
alpaca.
The now famous cow, he said, was a white Holstein from the
Sunny Dene Ranch in Mabton, Wash.
She was "a good walker," he said. As the driver poked her
with a cattle prod, her eyes were "all white, bugging out."
"She wouldn't come down that step," he went on, "and I knew
she was fixing to double back in and trample the downers,
and that's a mess," so he killed her there.
Mr. Louthan was also the plant's carcass splitter, and he
has a warning about that too.
With a 400-pound band saw, he said, splitters cleave the
spinal column from neck to tail as hot-water jets blast fat
and bone dust off the saw. The slurry, with spinal cord in
it, "runs all over the beef," he said. The carcasses are
then hosed with hot water and sprayed with vinegar.
Bucky Gwartney, director of research for the National
Cattlemen's Beef Association, confirmed that most American
slaughterhouses do the same. Since the Dec. 31 ruling that
all cows older than 30 months must have their brains and
spinal cords removed, "processors are actively looking at
changes," he said.
Mr. Louthan said the agent who ordered him to be quiet
suggested that he was akin to "an urban terrorist" for
spreading alarm about beef.
"I'm not," Mr. Louthan said. "I just want to enjoy my
cheeseburger like anybody else. I don't want to think: Is
this the magic burger that's going to kill me?"
[url]http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/03/health/03COW.html?ex=1077000832&ei=1&en=d57cc14a9a5bcdbb[/url]
February 3, 2004
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
Shooting a cow turned Dave Louthan into a crusader.
On Dec. 9, at Vern's Moses Lake Meats in Moses Lake, Wash.,
Mr. Louthan killed the only mad cow found in the United
States.
Two weeks later, he says, he was dismissed after four years
as Vern's slaughterer when he talked to the television
crews outside and told them he was sure the cow, ground
into hamburger, had already been eaten. The plant's owners
did not return calls seeking comment.
"I got a big mouth," he said in a telephone interview.
Since then, it has gotten bigger. Using borrowed computers
- he has none of his own, only "a microwave and a TV that
gets four channels" - he started writing to newspapers, and
is to testify today before the Washington State
Legislature.
Contrary to reports from the federal Department of
Agriculture, he asserts that the cow he killed was not too
sick to walk. And it was caught not by routine
surveillance, he says, but by "a fluke": he killed it
outdoors because he feared it would trample other cows
lying prostrate in its trailer, and the plant's testing
program called for sampling cows killed outside only.
"Mad cows aren't downers," he said. "They're up and they're
crazy." The Agriculture Department disputes his account.
Dr. Kenneth Petersen, a food safety official, faxed copies
of the Dec. 9 inspector's report saying the cow was
"sternal," or down on its chest.
Mr. Louthan said he believed the government changed the
report on Dec. 23, during the panic at Vern's when a
positive test was found. The "smoking gun," he said, is
that it is the only one on the page marked "unable to get
temp" while other cows' temperatures were recorded. It is
easy, he said, to get a rectal temperature from a downed
cow but hard from a jumpy one.
Dr. Petersen said that he had no indication the records
were altered and that the veterinarian had told him the
animal was lying so close to the trailer wall that a
thermometer could not be used.
In his new role as bloody-handed industry critic, Mr.
Louthan argues that too few cattle are tested for mad cow
to say with certainty that beef is safe. "One mad cow is a
scare, but two is an epidemic," he said. "They absolutely,
positively don't want to find another."
Ed Curlett, a department spokesman, said about 83 a month
were tested at Vern's from October to December. (The
testing began only in October, when the government starting
paying $10 a brain sample.)
The department has not changed last year's plans to test
40,000 cows nationwide this year, out of 30 million
slaughtered. Janet Riley, a spokeswoman for the American
Meat Institute, which represents slaughterhouses, called
that "plenty sufficient from a statistical standpoint."
Mr. Louthan, who lives across the street from Vern's, said
that the slaughtering was "still going like crazy" but that
an inspector in the plant told him no more mad cow testing
was being done.
Dr. Petersen said he did not know if Vern's was testing.
On Jan. 4, an angry Mr. Louthan started sending e-mail
messages to all the inspectors on the department's Web
site, asking, "Are you just going to sit there with your
hands in your pockets?" and accusing Agriculture Secretary
Ann M. Veneman of lying when she said American beef was
safe.
Since then, he said, green department cars have parked
outside his house "trying to scare me."
He gave the name and number of one agent who he said had
told him to get in the car and ordered him to stop sending
e-mail. The agent refused to speak to a reporter, but a
spokesman said Mr. Louthan had asked that they talk in the
agent's car and the agent did not intimidate, harass or
argue with him.
Mr. Louthan is no animal-rights champion. His good-old-boy
braggadocio and Texas drawl make him sound like a
parking-lot matador with a knocking gun - a tube with a
blank pistol cartridge that drives a bolt into the brain.
Killing is "really fun," and beats deboning, which he calls
"girls' work."
"I'm fast, I'm efficient, and I know how to get in through
their flight zones," he said, meaning the way nervous cows
turn to flee.
At Vern's, he killed about 20 old dairy cows a day and
buffaloes on Thursdays, along with the odd ostrich, emu and
alpaca.
The now famous cow, he said, was a white Holstein from the
Sunny Dene Ranch in Mabton, Wash.
She was "a good walker," he said. As the driver poked her
with a cattle prod, her eyes were "all white, bugging out."
"She wouldn't come down that step," he went on, "and I knew
she was fixing to double back in and trample the downers,
and that's a mess," so he killed her there.
Mr. Louthan was also the plant's carcass splitter, and he
has a warning about that too.
With a 400-pound band saw, he said, splitters cleave the
spinal column from neck to tail as hot-water jets blast fat
and bone dust off the saw. The slurry, with spinal cord in
it, "runs all over the beef," he said. The carcasses are
then hosed with hot water and sprayed with vinegar.
Bucky Gwartney, director of research for the National
Cattlemen's Beef Association, confirmed that most American
slaughterhouses do the same. Since the Dec. 31 ruling that
all cows older than 30 months must have their brains and
spinal cords removed, "processors are actively looking at
changes," he said.
Mr. Louthan said the agent who ordered him to be quiet
suggested that he was akin to "an urban terrorist" for
spreading alarm about beef.
"I'm not," Mr. Louthan said. "I just want to enjoy my
cheeseburger like anybody else. I don't want to think: Is
this the magic burger that's going to kill me?"
[url]http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/03/health/03COW.html?ex=1077000832&ei=1&en=d57cc14a9a5bcdbb[/url]
