From: "John Beamish" 

http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20031223-103657-3424r

About 1/3 in:

The Washington cow was tested because it was a so-called downer cow -- a
cow unable to stand on its own -- which is one possible sign of mad cow
disease. However, the United States sees approximately 200,000 of these per
year or about 10 times as many animals as are tested for the disease.

USDA officials told UPI as recently as Dec. 17 the agency still is
searching for documentation of its mad cow testing results from 2002 and
2003.

UPI initially requested the documents on July 10, and the agency sent a
response letter dated July 24, saying it had launched a search for any
documents pertaining to mad cow tests from 2002 and 2003.

"If any documents exist, they will be forwarded," USDA official
Michael Marquis wrote in the letter.

Despite this and a 30-day limit under the Freedom of Information Act on
responding to such a request, the USDA never sent any corresponding
documents. The agency's FOI office also did not return several calls from
UPI placed over a series of months.

Finally, UPI threatened legal action in early December if the agency did not respond.

In a Dec. 17 letter to UPI from USDA Freedom of Information Act Office
Andrea E. Fowler, the agency wrote: "Your request has been forwarded
to the (Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service) for processing and to
search for the record responsive to your earlier request."

To date, the USDA has not said if any records exist or if they will be sent to UPI.

"It's always concerned me that they haven't used the same rapid
testing technique that's used in Europe," where mad cow has been
detected in several additional countries outside of the United Kingdom,
Michael Schwochert, a retired USDA veterinarian in Ft. Morgan, Colo., told
UPI.

"It was almost like they didn't want to find mad cow disease,"
Schwochert said.


"Randall Parker"
 wrote in
message news:3fec7c76$1{at}w3.nls.net...
>
> How long has the problem been "covered up" in the US? Or, to put it
another way, how
> many weeks went by between the time this cow showed symptoms and samples
were sent
> off to be tested? This doesn't sound like a big cover-up to me.
>

[snip]

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