Safety of Public, Pet Food Sacrificed in Government P.R. Campaign, Group Says After Reviewing Legal Records
For Immediate Release:
May
3, 2012
Contact:
David
Perle 202-483-7382
Washington -- Charging that U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Tom Vilsack is focusing on protecting the meat and dairy industries when he should be protecting consumers, PETA sent a letter to Mr. Vilsack today demanding that the USDA retract false statements it has made about the safety of U.S. beef and milk in the wake of the discovery of mad cow disease in a California cow last month. Litigation filed by PETA against the secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture, the department itself, and the California Milk Advisory Board has revealed that the dairy industry does not even divulge what is in cattle feed these days, considering that a closely guarded "trade secret." Other information obtained by PETA under discovery in the lawsuit has revealed that approximately 18 percent of cows on dairy farms in California alone are lame—as was the California cow who tested positive—one of the symptoms of mad cow disease.
In the letter, general counsel to PETA Jeffrey Kerr points out that there is no way to know if any other animals are infected with mad cow disease since only a tiny fraction—about 40,000 cows, or about 0.1 percent of the nearly 34 million cows who are slaughtered every year—are tested for it at all. Despite the fact that it has publicly said that there is "no reason to believe that any other U.S. animals are currently affected" by mad cow disease, the government has since quarantined two dairy farms and is currently trying to track down the diseased cow's mother and siblings because they may also be infected and may even have entered the food chain or become pet food.
"It's mad for our Agriculture secretary to tell people that it's safe to consume meat and milk when a strong case can be made that it is not," says Kerr. "In his rush to prop up the meat and dairy industries, Tom Vilsack is putting people's and their pets' lives at risk."
It is very likely that milk from the California cow who tested positive for mad cow disease entered the food chain. Contrary to the USDA's emphatic assurances about the safety of milk, studies have shown that the sheep form of the disease can be spread from mother to baby through milk, and scientists from several European countries have specifically raised concerns about the potential risk to humans associated with dairy products.
Moreover, current feed regulations do not prevent the spread of mad cow disease since they allow producers to feed cow protein back to cows in the form of "poultry litter." Only "highest risk" tissues are banned from being used for feed—other parts of cow carcasses that have been implicated in the spread of mad cow disease are still used for feed.
For more information, please visit PETA.org.