06/21/05 B.S.E. re-test debate

It has been eyebrow raising enough that U.S.D.A., the day after a b.s.e. roundtable, announced that a sample from a cow that tested inconclusive last November, and later tested negative under a world recognized gold standard for b.s.e. testing, has come back as a weak positive under a different testing method. But the question that was raised of just what is the status of this cow for b.s.e., has been replaced by other questions. Such questions include "Is it really necessary to release this information without conclusive proof in the first place?" and "Did U.S.D.A. know something was up prior to the b.s.e. roundtable?" The reason for the second question stemmed from comments made by U.S.D.A. Secretary Mike Johanns last week that just hours before the roundtable, he was alerted that the U.S. Inspector General's Office had ordered re-tests of the samples for b.s.e.. But since that is all he knew at the time, he decided not to make an announcement. JOHANNS: Every Secretary tries to be enormously careful about putting information out when you really don't have the whole story because it can have a pretty profound impact on many, many people out there. It could have an impact on somebody that's marketing their cattle, it could have any impact relative to consumer groups and this and that. But Jay Truitt of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association agrees with that, to a point. His organization is concerned that even though Johanns waited, the announcement of a weak positive test&one result out of three from the re-tested sample&and the current follow-up testing at an international b.s.e. testing facility in England, perhaps maybe Johanns could have waited longer&say until results came back from the World Organization of Animal Health Lab. TRUITT: One of our goals here is to prevent further economic uncertainty in the marketplace, not to be releasing intermediate information just to feed the media, there's no reason for us to tell you why we did another test, and still we can't give you any final conclusive answer & that we prefer to know certainty. And R-CALF U.S.A. says even though it is known that the sample in question comes from an aged cow, the lack of information & domestic or imported, precise age or breed & being released to the industry, and the way U.S.D.A. is handling this latest episode, is in their opinion, putting the agency's credibility on b.s.e. testing on the line.