"DEAR ABBY:" GO VEGETARIAN

Is it a coincidence this column appeared just before the Great American Meatout? "Abby" is talking about a specific case, but her use of the imperative is clear. When a questioner describes an unwelcome house guest who complains - "The steak isn't cooked the way he likes it, or I don't toss the salad the way his mom does. ... How can I get this moocher out of my home without causing trouble between my husband and myself?" Abby says: "That's easy. Stop feeding that moocher steak, go vegetarian, and toss the salads YOUR way."

MY OWN VEGAN IDAHO

Call me an East-Coast city slicker, but I had no idea there were more than one or two vegans in the whole state of Idaho. But in this NY Times story about John Kerry, a tossed off comment about this one town mentions that "[its] rebellious teenagers tend to be "hard-core vegans." Hey, aren't the B-52s vegan? It all makes sense now...

FACTORY FARMS WIPING OUT LIFE ON EARTH

What. You think that's overstated? Well, yeah it is. But not as much as you'd think."The Earth may be on the brink of a sixth mass extinction on a par with the five others that have punctuated its history, suggests the strongest evidence yet." The main decline in extinctions is linked to nitrogen pollution. And guess what? "Atmospheric nitrogen pollution is caused mainly by the burning of fossil fuels and from intensive agriculture, especially from the volatilisation of animal waste."

GORILLA ESCAPES, INJURES FOUR, SHOT TO DEATH

It would be funny but for the tragedy: "Dallas Zoo officials said they can't explain how a 300-pound gorilla escaped from his enclosure, injuring four people before he was shot to death." What a shocker, huh? Whodathunkit? Sorry, but this kind of thing makes me sick. One of the kids hurt in the escape was a toddler, who will be scarred for life at the least, physically and mentally, from this. There's also the death of the gorilla. But hey - that's all right, because the more important thing is keeping wild animals on display in the middle of cities. Yep, it's a necessity!

UPDATE 3/25: Gorilla Escape Now A Federal Investigation Investigators have searched all over the southern section of the Wilds of Africa Exhibit and can't find where Jabari could have escaped. Zoo officials are looking into a tip that teenagers were throwing rocks or ice at the gorilla. The agitation may have caused Jabari to miraculously leap over the wall and electric wire.

HISTORIC USDA ACTION ON ELEPHANTS

"For the first time since elephants began entertaining people at American circuses more than 200 years ago, the federal government has removed a herd of circus animals from an owner accused of mistreating and mishandling his animals," reports the Washington Post. The bozo in question is "one of the largest providers of circus animals in the nation," who was in trouble last year for much of the same, and previously for an elephant that escaped a performance and went on a fatal rampage. The difference here is that the USDA is acting like it's going to take large-scale, gratuitous animal abuse a little more seriously. We'll wait and watch to see if this is followed up, but it's a notable step.

Still, the "fairy tale ending" may be illusory, as the person taking charge of the elephants' care remarks: "Cuneo has made a lot of money on the backs of these animals, and now he's getting rid of them when they're less and less useful to him. Because there is TB in the herd, it's going to be very difficult to find homes for them individually or in some groups. We think they need to remain together as a herd, and that's going to be very hard to do."

I'LL JUST SWITCH TO FISH OIL

The Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry reports that the levels of flame retardants (yummmmm) have increased dramatically in cod liver oil, the most popular fish oil used in supplements by people trying to improve heart health. Once again, the "necessity" to include fish oil in the diet has a "liability" flip side, one that's missing from plant sources of Omega-3s.

DOWNER ISSUE GETS MUDDIER

The USDA is still dogding and weaving and flip-flopping on the Mad Cow downer issue, but now Dave Louthan and Tom Ellestad are as well - specifically on the question of whether Ellestad's plant processed downers at all. Felicia Nestor "said she has reviewed Ellestad's records and the facility was processing less than 20 percent downer animals, which was legal until the USDA banned downers from being slaughtered for human consumption in late December." Well, yeah, great, but his affidavit says ZERO downers. What gives? Meanwhile, Louthan is saying "Ninety percent of animals processed there were downers." WTF? The most frustrating thing is that though the USDA vet has supposedly spoken publicly now, there's no Q&A with vet over Louthan's "Smoking Gun" document - the missing temp, antibiotics listings for this particular cow. I continue to believe that that's where the real issue lies, and we'll have to see where this goes from there.

PLEASE PAY ATTENTION

Even in a USDA-naysaying article on Common Dreams, the claim is baldly repeated that USDA "will test" 200,000 to 280,000 cows. At least there's a note that it's beginning in June and going for a year and a half, rather than the oft-heard timeline of "this year."

Meanwhile, though, Steve Mitchell is reading the fine print. His phrasing is: "USDA's plan, which aims to test as many high-risk animals as possible over a 12-18 month period, could involve screening more than 200,000 cows, including some 20,000 healthy, older animals." (My italics.) But he goes on to note that the 1-in-10-million concept "assumes all animals potentially infected with mad cow will be found among downers -- or animals unable to stand -- as well as dead animals and those showing symptoms of central nervous system disorders. Lurie noted, however, this is a faulty assumption, because hundreds of seemingly healthy cattle in Europe have tested positive for the disease. In addition, there are significantly more non-downers than downer and sick animals in .S. herds."

Also, this was interesting: "Robert LaBudde, president of Least Cost Formulation Ltd., a food industry consultancy in Virginia Beach, Va., said he thinks there are as many as 120 additional infected animals in the United States. Approximately half of those cases could be in animals with no apparent signs of disease."

Mitchell brings in critical views from different perspectives: "Consumer groups expressed concern about that specific aspect of USDA's plan, because the agency intends to allow rendering facilities to process downer and sick cattle before the results of the mad cow test are known, then dispose of the rendered product later if there is a positive test. Disposing of the infected material might not reduce the risk, however, because the rendering machinery will be contaminated."

And one more thing to think about comes from the GAO's Felicia Nestor, who's concerned now that the USDA has announced a start date, and has identified the 40 slaughtering facilities that will be screening healthy, older animals, "that ranchers and farmers will know to avoid those plants. They also could begin culling their herds of any older animals prior to the June start date."

DEADLY BIRD FLU PANDEMIC: "INEVITABLE"

The avian flu galloping across Asia poses "the most serious pandemic threat since 1968," Keiji Fukuda said Monday at the International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases. A pandemic caused by a flu strain that is new, deadly to humans and highly contagious "is inevitable," he said. I'm just sayin'.

USDA PROMISE: 200,000 COWS TESTED THIS YEAR

I didn't blog any of the stories last week saying the USDA supposedly was going to increase Mad Cow testing, because I wanted to wait and hear the USDA commit to it publicly and explicitly. Well, now it's official - I guess... listen to how it's made public: "U.S. animal health inspectors will test between 200,000 and 260,000 cattle for mad cow disease this year, up from 20,000 last year, a legislative aide told Reuters on Monday. Yes, that's right - it's not an announcement from the front office, but "a legislative aide, who was briefed by U.S. Agriculture Department officials." Well, who was this aide? "The aide, who wished not to be identified, said the one-year testing program would allow inspectors to be 99 percent confident that if there was one case of mad cow disease among 10 million cattle, it could be identified." WTF? Wished not to be identified? See, this is what worried me about this so-called promise. Who's going to stand behind it? We don't even have a damn spokesman's name yet! Something tells me they're not going to actually test 200,000 cattle this year, but I'm putting that as a headline to remind us that that's the claim.

PM UPDATE: The USDA now has a release up about this, and it supplies enough context to show that already the con is on. The statement above from Reuters that "U.S. animal health inspectors will test between 200,000 and 260,000 cattle for mad cow disease this year" is incorrect, since this plan doesn't go into effect until June: "USDA will begin immediately to prepare for the increased testing, with the anticipation that the program will be ready to be fully implemented June 1, 2004. In the meantime, BSE testing will continue at the current rate." PLUS: They're already backing off the concept that they "will test" 200,000 to 280,000 - note that every mention of that is couched as a conditional - "if we test this many, we can be this certain." In the transcript of the USDA press briefing, Bill Thomson of Oster Dow Jones brings this up - "you're not giving us an estimate on how many animals you will test. Is there a possibility that you'll test less than 201,000 animals?" and DeHaven comes out and says: "You guys are doing your best to get me to identify a number, and I'll emphasize again that the goal of this is to test as many of that target population as we can." Then: "It's possible that we would collect somewhere less than 200,000." So this blog entry hasn't even been up all day, and already, the "promise" that's been reported as fact in all major newspapers is revealed to be non-binding. It's the difference between saying "I'm going to do such-and-such" and "I'll do my best!"

AND: More evidence this is a smokescreen for business as usual: Scott Kilman of the WSJ asks, "Under the old program employees of meat packing companies or meat plants often picked that animal. Will that now be the job of a federal employee?" and DeHaven hedges, basically saying that since they're doing the best they can, it doesn't matter who picks the cows to test. He says the answer will be in "the plan on our website," but, lo and behold, it ain't. The plan spells out who physically collects the samples, but not who picks. But come on, folks, give 'im a break - he's doing the best he can!

UPDATE 3/16: No matter how much DeHaven and Veneman tap-dance about this, "we're doing our best" isn't good enough for Japan - which is, of course, the bottom line.

AND: It's apparently also not good enough for US meatpackers.

A SORRY 'SPORT'

An op-ed in The Frontiersman points out that "the race is so grueling that, on average, 54 percent of the dogs who start the race do not make it to the finish line." I didn't know that and can't vouch for its accuracy, but I haven't seen anyone challenge it. What they did challenge, apparently, was a Frontiersman reporter's heckling at the race itself. "At this year's Iditarod Musher's Banquet, a Frontiersman reporter, who was not on official assignment, booed one of the mushers and was involved in a confrontation with several people." The Frontiersman goes on to say "we apologize to the Swingleys, Dick Mackey, the Iditarod Trail Committee, the mushers and anyone who was offended by the conduct of our reporter." That conduct sounds unprofessional for a journalist - but the conduct of the lead "musher" is, of course, above reproach: "Norwegian musher Kjetil Backen kept the slimmest of leads yesterday in the 32nd annual Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, arriving a minute ahead of Mitch Seavey after stopping outside the Unalakleet checkpoint because one of his dogs collapsed and died." Awww, poor guy. What an inconvenience! And get this - "Backen asked for help from a reporter and photographer who were on a snowmobile outside the checkpoint. Backen said his dog had died and to go get race marshal Mark Nordman because the musher didn't want to carry the dead dog in his sled bag into the checkpoint." Gee, hope that wasn't the same reporter. Is carrying dead dogs around professional conduct? I have a feeling there's an apology due somewhere there.

COST-BENEFIT FOLLIES

Another state has the Bird Flu: "More than 300,000 chickens on Maryland's Eastern Shore were destroyed yesterday to stem a fresh outbreak of avian influenza. The flu has infected birds in Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey in recent weeks and is threatening the heart of the tri-state Delmarva economy." Just wondering - is it wise to have an economy so tied to animals that a flu can torpedo several industries at once? And - forgetting for the moment the egregious ethics of killing 300,000 "food animals" without even turning them into food - is there in fact another industry that routinely has to destroy and discard such a large amount of its core product because of problems generated by the product itself?

MEAT IS MEAT, AFTER ALL

Those not repulsed by consuming dead flesh in a variety of tasty products may think twice if that flesh is human. Such is the case in British Columbia, where "health officials issued an alert urging anyone who may have meat from Robert Pickton's farm near Vancouver to contact police. Mr Pickton, 54, has been charged with 15 murders of women, most of whom were linked to Vancouver's sex trade." But don't worry - "The risk to human health for those who consumed the products is extremely remote, based on the fact most pork products are typically well-cooked, which is known to effectively destroy most infectious agents," local health authorities said in a statement. Well, then. All along the trouble with cannibalism was that we weren't cooking our fellow humans enough.

_________*NEW FEATURE: MONTHLY VEGAN*_________

In an effort to focus on the positive as well as the negative here at Meat Facts, I'm starting a new feature of including one story a month of the human-interest vegan. This is a story about some local person and/or family going vegan and how it's improved their life to one degree or another, and recipes for people to try in case they're so moved. This is not to diss the story genre, because each of these deserves to be heard, it's just that usually I haven't included them because there's no news hook, nothing that will be truly new or noteworthy to Meat Facts readers, since each of these is practically another introduction to the concept of veganism. But now I'm ignoring that concern, and I'll spotlight one a month. Here's March's Monthly Vegan.

"We did it for health reasons, and this was well before mad cow disease was in the news a lot," said Roger Browne, an engineer who had a health screening before beginning the vegan diet. He's since lost 35 pounds, feels great and plans a follow-up physical exam to compare the results of the diet. "We decided to avoid animal products, including dairy, which seems to be a source of allergies for a lot of people," he said. "I have a lot more energy since changing my diet and don't get as 'loggy' late in the day. At each meal, I eat until I'm full and my snack is often a handful of mixed nuts -- usually a no-no for other people."

EAT ANIMALS, GET SICK, GET FAT, GOT THAT?

"Americans are eating more fat and cholesterol as 'low-carb' diets grow in popularity, but people do not seem to be losing weight and they are putting their health at risk, U.S. researchers said" in a Reuters story from the weekend.

After a probing analysis of food consumption and health-risk data comes the meat of it, if you will, in another study:

"[Low-carb diets] may not help people lose weight, suggested a study by Linda van Horn of Northwestern University in Chicago and colleagues. The study assessed more than 4,000 people in the United States, Britain, Japan and China, asking them to write down everything they had eaten over two 24-hour periods. 'Lo and behold, what we did find is that without exception, a high complex-carbohydrate, high-fiber, high vegetable-protein diet was associated with low body-mass index (the standard measure of healthy weight),' Van Horn said.

The more animal protein a person ate, the higher his or her weight, she said.

Huh. What was that again? "The more animal protein a person ate, the higher his or her weight." Huh. Can ya beat that.

UPDATE 3/10: Another sun-rises-in-the-east discovery, via Vegan Porn: "Consuming foods high in animal protein, saturated fat, eggs and dairy" raises your risk of developing non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL), a cancer that attacks the immune system, say Yale researchers in the American Journal of Epidemiology. "The study also showed that diets high in dietary fiber -- tomatoes, broccoli, mixed lettuce salad with vegetables, cauliflower, etc.-- were associated with a reduced risk of NHL."

CDC AND NJ INVESTIGATING CJD CLUSTER

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services are now officially examining the apparent cluster of CJD cases centered around the former Garden State Race Track in Cherry Hill. Janet Skarbek now has a list of at least eight and possibly 13 deaths from CJD in people known to have frequented the track. Steve Mitchell mentions the recent scientific discovery of a new form of CJD that mimics the sporadic form, and notes this interesting factoid: "One racetrack employee, Carrie Mahan, 29, died from a mysterious condition in 2000 that initially appeared to be vCJD. Subsequent tests, however, ruled out both vCJD and sporadic CJD, and it remains unclear exactly what killed Mahan. But at least one expert, Dr. Omar Bagasra, a biologist at Claflin University in Orangeburg, S.C., suspected it could be a new strain of CJD related to mad cow-infected meat." Well, with one area developing at least twice the number of cases that could be explained by chance, it's gotta be something. Here's hoping these two agencies honestly work out the answer and provide it to us.

SPREADING IT TOO THICK

Here's a little human-interest story that fell through the cracks when the Mad Cow criminal probe was announced: An entire Green Bay-area family was forced out of their home by polluted water due to manure runoff from a nearby factory farm.

Scott Treml, his wife, Judy, and their three daughters, ages 8, 6 and 6 months, were looking for a place to stay early Tuesday evening after presenting the Kewaunee County Land & Water Conservation Committee with a sample of water Tuesday morning taken from a kitchen tap Monday that looked more like ditch water than drinking water. "If my kids drank that they'd be in the hospital in 48 hours," Judy Treml said. "It's very scary living with that."

The Tremls said manure spread on Stahl Farm fields starting on Thursday and ending on Saturday began showing up in their water over the weekend, and tests of their well water over the last two years have turned up evidence of fecal bacteria in water that appeared clean. David Bougie, an agricultural wastewater specialist for the state Department of Natural Resources, said Stahl Farms is the target of an ongoing investigation. "This facility has had a history of issues," Bougie said. Stahl Farms' owner, Glen J. Stahl, was cited and fined twice by the state for water pollution in the 1990s, according to computerized Circuit Court records.

Treml said he has called Wallander and Bougie at least two dozen times to complain about manure handling at Stahl Farms over the past two years. Wallander said his hands are tied by regulations that limit the county's ability to regulate big farms.

Huh. Funny you should mention that, because on the same day, an editorial in a different Green Bay-area paper railed against exactly this level of heinous abuse of the system that animal exploiters enjoy. As Wisconsin considers a bill like those in other states to override counties' (and municipalities') concerns about huge factory farms moving in, the Green Bay News-Chronicle points out that "Development of CAFOs will be contrary to the interests of the real estate and tourism industries as well. Who would willingly patronize a restaurant downwind of a factory farm? How many folks would build a house in an area of strong stench? This bill should not attempt to force all counties to come under this proposal. There is no advantage for FAMILY farmers in this bill, so support by family farmers is inexplicable." Well, actually there is one possible explication for that, but it's not a charitable one, so we'll skip past it.

The article continues: "Concentrating one species in a small area is highly artificial, and invites disease outbreaks and defies good sense because of the concentration of manure. Reasonable people would not invest money in such enterprises." Exactly. And yet every single person who pays for a burger or a pound of USDA beef is doing precisely that.

IT'S IN THE CARDS

Here's an interesting wrinkle in the Mad Cow lawsuit - the family is arguing that the store should have alerted them based on their purchase going through a "loyalty card." "QFC, through that card, has a databank which gives the addresses and phone numbers of all of their Advantage Saver customers and all they had to do is make one phone call and tell these people they had meat that might kill them," said Nick Steyant-Browne, the attorney for family. Sure, it sounds simple now, but would you want to make that call?

The funny part, though, is the comments of some of the loyalty-card customers on the prospect of using the card records for emergency contacts: "I think they should make their best attempt to post it conspicuously, but I don't really want them knowing what I bought," said David Chatt, an Advantage Card holder. And: "I just don't believe in giving the personal information out, that's all," said Lamar Beaber, another Advantage Card holder. Isn't this exactly the attitude of the meat-eating consumer? "As long as I don't quite understand what's going on in the back room there, it must be fine." Better than that, it's Grade-A!

YOU TALKIN' TO ME, PUNK?

Not sure how scientifically sourced this is, but Britain's Channel Five apparently will air findings that the infamous gladiators of old were vegans, so rough & tough they fought not in sandals, but barefoot! "Anthropological autopsies ... indicate a vegetarian diet of beans and barley which produced a thick layer of fat. 'They got enough of this food every day to make them very fat and strong,' said Karl Grossschmidt, a forensic anthropologist at Vienna University. Grossschmidt said the diet likely provided protection from slashing wounds and damage to nerves and blood vessels, with the layer of fat augmenting their scant armor." Well, OK. If you say so. All I can say is, if they were eating vegan and getting that fat, they must've had a hell of a lot of barley.

NEW: TOFU SANDWICHES (!) AT MCDONALDS

Well, OK, it's McDonald's Japan. But as I've pointed out before, what happens at the biggest non-US franchise of McDonald's Corp. is sometimes a harbinger of trends for the company at large. I mentioned the Japan unit's recent tailspin and how it was a bad sign, and Businessweek seems to concur: "Given that the Japan operation generates nearly $2.7 billion in sales... the troubles there made the folks back at headquarters in Oak Brook, Ill., a bit edgy." So... tofu sandwiches! Let's get 'em over here!