By Brenda Shoss, 4/2/07

If we can't feel or see this imaginary stuff, no problem exists, Ms. Kangaroo huffs. But Horton, an elephant of great girth, was certain he heard cries from a teeny tiny earth.

"Then finally, at last! Their voices were heard! They've proved they are here, no matter how small.'"

And so little Whos of Whoville were saved by someone who believed in their right to remain. Their world on a dust speck was clearly in tatters, till Horton proclaimed: "EVERY VOICE MATTERS!"

In Theodor Geisel's (a.k.a. Dr. Seuss) fabled tale, Horton the elephant hears pleas for help on a dust speck lodged in a clover. Hollywood's version of Horton Hears A Who paints an animated universe strangely like our own. No one in the jungle trusts the goofy pachyderm because, as Kangaroo warns: You cannot believe in something you can't see or touch.

As a rule, we don't hear much about cows. California's Milk Advisory Board assures us they are "Happy Cows," who "make a ton of other delicious dairy products!"

In a Horton-esque twist, cows became news with the release of a video from Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) in February 2008. The footage, shot over six weeks in 2007, shows how Westland/Hallmark Meat Company mistreated sick cows trucked in from industrialized dairies. After HSUS gave their video to the San Bernardino County District Attorney's Office, two workers at the Chino, Calif.-based plant were booked on possibly the nation's first felony charges for animal abuse at a slaughterhouse. So far, none of their superiors face prosecution.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture banned "downed cattle" from entry into the human food chain after the 2003 discovery of a Washington state downer with mad cow disease. Still, close to a half million infirm cows are annually dragged to slaughter, a JAVMA report predicts. Each nonambulatory animal is worth about $30 in hamburger revenue. Big dairy operations account for 90-95% of downed cows, asserts Temple Grandin, an animal science professor at Colorado State University who considers 75% of cases preventable with humane care.

In the HSUS video, Hallmark employees electrically shock the heads, necks, spines and rectums of disabled cows. Former pen manager Daniel Navarro paddles a listless cow in the face and eye. The men hoist cows on forklift prongs and roll their giant bodies over pavement. They fire concentrated water jets into the cows' nostrils and throats.

I'd Never Heard A Cow Scream Like That. "One cow is down on the truck when she arrives," the investigator recounts. "Workers shock her from behind, but she's too weak to stand. A chain is attached to her leg and she's dragged with a forklift. As she's pushed along concrete, you can see it causes her so much painÉ A worker drives over her leg and face with the wheels of the forklift. I'd never heard a cow scream like that before." By itself, Hallmark footage is unremarkable. The breaking news is how they got caught. It took some guy with a pen camera fastened to a shirt button to reveal that downers — those most likely to test positive for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) or mad cow disease — easily make their way to dinner tables. Among 15 confirmed BSE cases in North America, at least 12 were downers. Impaired cows also harbor more E. coli and Salmonella contamination. The investigator toiled 12-hour days, at $8 an hour, herding cows down chutes to the kill floor. In an anonymous phone interview, he told the Los Angeles Times he observed "brutalization of animals too weak or sick to walk to slaughter. It was so in-yourface. As cows are making their final steps, there's no USDA personnel objecting to this behavior." His findings prompted a recall of 143,383,823 pounds of beef on February 17, 2008. Hallmark, a partner of Westland Meat, lost its USDA contract to furnish beef for America's School Lunch Program. Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) suspended its audits, in effect closing the plant. The Office of the Inspector General subpoenaed proof for the Justice Department to pursue criminal prosecution. It was a whistle-blower's triumph, as if Horton himself had roused sleeping bureaucrats: "The video, the cows, the peopleÉhow true! Hence forth, Kangaroo will protect every creature with you!" But Capitol Hill isn't Seuss-world and U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Edward W. Schafer is no Kangaroo. In Congressional Hearings spurred by the Hallmark fiasco, Schafer said it's okay for downer cattle to enter the food supply from time to time. He asked the Senate Appropriations Agriculture subcommittee to strike down a legally binding ban on slaughter of downers.

Why Do We Need A Downer Law?
Our "Rule" Already Serves Justice For All!
The Downed Animal Protection Act establishes an enforceable industry-wide ban on the transport marketing and slaughter of all downed animals (not just cows). The Farm Animal Stewardship Purchasing Act requires government-contracted producers to comply with basic humane policies, such as merciful euthanasia for downers. Neither bill has seen much movement beyond committee hearings. Secretary Schafer and other regulators believe a downer law is unnecessary.

Perhaps, but it's a gamble. Nonprofit humane groups — not federal watchdogs — expose most animal welfare and food security breaches. Westland/Hallmark, for example, is not a first-time offender. In 1993, the animal protection organization Farm Sanctuary filmed Hallmark workers shoving debilitated cows with forklifts. Two California groups uncovered 11 verified instances of abuse at Hallmark between 1996 and 2004. USDA cited Hallmark for violations such as "too much electric prodding" in 2005. After the video story broke, USDA found Hallmark had killed cows forced upright for pre-slaughter inspection since February 2006. This all happened under USDA radar, despite the agency's 2003 injunction on downed cows for human consumption. In 2005 another mad cow emerged in Texas, further substantiating the link between downers and BSE. Even so, the Bush administration diluted USDA's rule in 2007 to let downers, under certain circumstances, pass into the food chain. Cronyism, USDA-Style Today, there is still no downer law. USDA's weak rule doesn't prevent slaughter of immobilized cows and excludes downed pigs, goats, sheep, and other animals altogether. A ban on chains, forklifts, trucks, shock prods and other violent means to move animals is largely ignored. Just 7,600 inspectors monitor 6,200 slaughterplants across the nation. Evaluating animals often involves "peering down from catwalks at hundreds of animals, looking for telltale signs such as droopy ears, stumbling gait and facial paralysis," the Associated Press disclosed in February 2008. Inspections are so irregular, companies clean up their act beforehand. Past USDA official Mike Taylor says the department is locked in an old-fashioned mindset, "that doesn't fill the bill on either food safety or animal welfare." Indeed, FSIS fails to enforce rules and screen sick animals, according to an Office of the Inspector General audit that predates the Hallmark debacle.

"It's the inevitable outcome of a system in which animal abuse and health concerns are predictable by-products of following the prime directive — maximizing profit — in a context of inadequate oversight," Anna LappŽ writes in Largest Beef Recall, Ever. Now, Real Change? for the Huffington Post. Big Meat pretty much regulates itself, with deep political pockets. In 2006, LappŽ notes, the livestock trade lavished $4.5 million on lobbyists. National Cattlemen's Beef Association PAC contributed nearly a half million dollars for a total livestock industry gift that capped $5 million. Agribusiness has donated nearly $300 million to Republicans from 1990-2008, the Center For Responsive Politics reports. Policymakers and cattlemen are virtually indistinguishable, LappŽ points out. A one-time public relations director for National Cattlemen's Beef Association (NCBA) is USDA's Communications Director. A Cattlemen's director of legislative affairs became chief of staff for previous USDA Secretary Ann Veneman. USDA's Deputy Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs boasts 15 years experience with NCBA. And so on. Critics question USDA's dual role as promoter/regulator. Some want the agency to stop inspecting the same meat it advertises. A Hefty Price Tag As experts weigh the merits of pre-slaughter inspection versus total downer exclusion, they forget the animal on the ground. USDA Secretary Schafer says rules are clear: "If one goes down, you call the veterinarian to make a judgment." Meanwhile the "one who goes down" languishes in manure, sometimes for days, as she awaits inspection. From an industry standpoint, "image will improve, both domestically and in export marketsÉif downers are prevented and when a nonambulatory condition does occur, put down on the farm," writes foodborne-illness litigator Bill Marler in The Raw Economics Driving the Use of Downers. From a social perspective, one wonders if cheap meat is really worth its cost in inhumanity. The cows found their Horton in a Humane Society investigator. Now, can anyone else hear them? Kinship Circle's column runs in The Healthy Planet. Ms. Shoss has also contributed to The Animals Voice, Satya Magazine, VegNews, and other publications. To reprint this column, please request author permission at info@kinshipcircle.org Back To Top

FROM DAIRY TO DOWNER TO DINNER...
How 'downer' cows enter food chain
Emaciated, calcium-depleted dairy cattle are turned into meat
chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-sick-cows-030208-cows-sick-usda,1,4384254.story
By Stephen J. Hedges | Tribune staff reporter | March 1, 2008

...Dairy cows done giving milk make up about 17% of America's annual beef slaughter, according to the Humane Society of the United States, which videotaped the cow abuses at the Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. in Chino, Calif.

Prices for "culled" dairy cows can be half to about a tenth of the price of a fully fed steer in the beef market. The reason for the discount is that some dairy cows go to slaughter plants in rough shape. Typically, they have often been milked for several years, leaving their bodies without the muscle, fat and calcium of grazing, well-fed beef cattle. Some dairy cows appear emaciated when they are sold to slaughter plants, their hides stretched tight over their hindquarters and ribs.

    

Dairy cows can also carry some common maladies, including mastitis, a bacterial infection of the udder; foot rot, which they can develop from standing for long periods in manure, mud and damp straw; and Johne's (pronounced yo-neez) disease, a wasting illness.

Scientists believe these diseases are not carried into the human food chain, with one possible exception: Health and animal scientists are currently debating whether the traits of Johne's are responsible for Crohn's disease in humans. Crohn's disease is an intestinal disorder that can cause inflammation of the colon, severe abdominal pain, diarrhea and weight loss. Some argue that it's these very problems that prompt farmers to dispatch the cows to the slaughterhouse in the first place.

"Farmers are obviously not culling dairy cows just because they aren't making a lot of milk," said Michael Collins of the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine, an expert on Johne's disease. "Almost by definition, there's something wrong with them, and in some cases those can be infections that present issues for humans."

PHOTOS: Farm Sanctuary nodowners.org farmsanctuary.org

"We care about animals"
Some dairy farmers say having lean and skinny dairy cows isn't unusual, because the cows are bred to use their energy to produce milk, not store fat and build muscle like beef cattle. And they dispute the notion that unhealthy cows are being sold for meat.

Linnea Kooistra, who with her husband, Joel, runs a Woodstock, Ill., dairy farm of 250 cows, said animal care is a constant concern. A veterinarian visits weekly to check on the cows, she said, and a nutritionist visits once a month to monitor the herd's diet. A cow hoof trimmer even comes regularly to give bovine pedicures. Kooistra said she finds it hard to believe that dairy farmers would neglect cows headed for market.

"You don't get into a business like this unless you care about animals," said Kooistra, a third-generation dairy farmer. "If it's the middle of the night and a cow is having a calf, you're out there. We care about animals. It's what we do."

A quarter of her herd is sent to the beef market each year, she said, to make way for cows producing more milk. "Cows that end up going to market are healthy," she said. "They're not sickly cows. Cows that are going to market have low production; they just don't produce as much milk."

PHOTOS: Farm Sanctuary nodowners.org farmsanctuary.org "We care about animals."

No fears of mad cow
USDA and beef industry officials were quick to acknowledge, then discount, an obvious health concern presented by the videotape of downer cows at the Chino plant: mad cow disease.

The inability of a cow to stand is considered a symptom of mad cow, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), though cattle may go down for a number of reasons, including ailing or broken limbs, exhaustion and lack of water. BSE deteriorates a cow's nervous system and brain, and can similarly afflict humans who eat meat infected with BSE.

PHOTOS: Farm Sanctuary nodowners.org farmsanctuary.org MAD COW CONNECTION: Scientific evidence shows downers may have a strain of BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy) or mad cow disease. Virus-like prions present in BSE can trigger Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD), a fatal nervous system infection in humans. CJD induces amnesia and other neurological symptoms such as loss of coordination. In a study from the U.S. Congressional Government Accountability Office, authors define the incubation phase for mad cow as 2 to 8 years in animals and as long as 30 years in people. Of 15 officially recorded cases of mad cow in North America, almost all originated in downer cows.

But the presence of downer cows at the Chino plant did not mean the risk of mad cow disease was any higher, USDA officials said. Richard Raymond, who heads USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service, which is responsible for inspecting cattle at slaughter, said that having "interlocking" safeguards to prevent mad cow disease in the U.S. "makes this extremely rare that on these rare circumstances where one of these cows was allowed to go to slaughter that they would be contaminated with BSE."

Despite its investigation, USDA has so far said little about the role of its inspectors at the Chino plant who approved the cattle for slaughter. Last week, USDA announced it would increase the amount of time that meat inspectors at all packing plants spend verifying "humane handling activities." That effort will include increased surveillance of animals "outside approved hours of operation" at packing plants, USDA said.

USDA, despite the massive size of the recall, has also concluded that the danger of human illness from eating meat made in Chino is remote. About 37 million of the 143 million pounds of meat recalled by the Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. were bought by USDA for nutrition and school lunch programs.

    

    

David Wolfgang, a veterinarian at Pennsylvania State University's Department of Agricultural Sciences, said the Chino video has put the meat and dairy industry on notice. While he said the practices at the plant are not common, there have been cases where animal treatment was an issue.

The Humane Society's Mohler has worked with groups like Farm Sanctuary and Animals' Angels on animal mistreatment prosecutions at livestock auctions in Pennsylvania, a large dairy state.

Mohler and Wolfgang took part in a recent meeting among Pennsylvania officials and agricultural interests prompted by the Chino video. Wolfgang said the group hopes to develop animal-handling guidelines for livestock auctions and stockyards, as well as for drivers who transport animals to auctions and slaughter plants.

"When bad things happen, there are people out there trying to change things," Wolfgang said. "It's not all bleak. But I think some of the veterinarians feel like we're totally in the middle, saying, `We need you guys to be profitable, but we're trying to do this with the animals' well being in mind.' "

KINSHIP CIRCLE SAMPLE LETTERS:
• I'm Mad. Downer Ban? USDA Says Forget It
• USDA- Certified Cruel: Downers Dragged , Shocked, Rammed