The OCA and the Center for Media and Democracy will be staging a press conference and "Mad Cow Milkshake Demonstration" outside a USDA PR event in St. Paul Minnesota on June 9. While USDA national head Mike Johanns tells a carefully selected audience of beef industry boosters at the University of Minnesota that all is well with the USDA's "Don't Look, Don't Test" policy on Mad Cow Disease, consumer and farmer representatives outside will graphically demonstrate how American cattle on non-organic farms are still being fed cow blood, slaughterhouse waste, and poultry manure--practices banned in Europe and Japan because they spread Mad Cow Disease. OCA will also call attention to the fact that the USDA is still refusing to test all animals at slaughter, despite repeated pleas by American consumers and the overseas customers for U.S. Beef. In addition, the USDA has threatened to arrest and jail U.S. meat producers and ranchers if they dare to contract with leading Mad Cow detection labs and start to do their own testing. The OCA will be delivering "Stop the Madness" petition signatures to USDA Secretary Johanns this week, so please sign now!

http://www.organicconsumers.org/madcow/MadCowRelease060605.htm


MORE NEWS ON USDA MAD COW COVER-UP

U.S. government officials are apparently blocking efforts to allow a French lab to analyze and carry out tests on the brain tissue of a U.S. man who is strongly suspected to have died of the human variant of mad cow disease. A deceased California man's family and doctor have announced they believe Patrick Hicks, aged 49, died late last year from variant Creutzfeldt Jakob disease, or vCJD. The fatal disease is contracted from eating beef contaminated with mad cow disease. Patrick Hicks would be the first confirmed case in the U.S. of someone dying from the vCJD disease who had never traveled or spent time in Europe.

Despite efforts by the deceased man's family and doctors to have his brain tissue thoroughly tested at a lab in France U.S. officials have bungled tests and repeatedly dragged their heels on sending brain samples overseas. "I don't know what's going on here," said Dr. Bailey, the physician who attended Patrick Hicks.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/madcow/delayed060305.cfm