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From: Lacey (64-126-88-247-dhcp-kc.everestkc.net)
Subject: Letter to the Editor from Former Employee of Vern's Lake Moses Meats
Date: January 22, 2004 at 6:41 am PST
Here is a letter to the editor of the Columbia Basin Herald from a former employee of Vern's Lake Moses Meats. Note that he claims that the cow infected with BSE was not a downer but in his words "it was just an old cow." After that letter I will post the address of another article with a quote from the employee while he was still working at Vern's. Source: http://www.columbiabasinherald.com/index.asp?Sec=letters&str=5307 "Is the beef safe? Who knows? My name is Dave and I work at Vern's Moses Lake Meats. I did until the day the mad cow test results on the Sunny Dene cow came back positive for BSE. That was Wednesday, Dec. 24. On Friday, Dec. 26, the KXLY news crew was at the end of Vern's driveway, locked out by a cable gate. The USDA had told the world that the mad cow had been slaughtered here, but it was not in the food chain. A blatant lie. It was one of many.
I walked out the news crew at lunch time because I can't stand a government cover-up. They asked me "was the cow in the food chain?" I told them of course it was, it's meat. Where else would it be? They asked me if the cow was a downer. I told them no, it was just an old cow.
The USDA had us taking brain stem samples from downers and back door cripples only. Since we only had a few walkers on this trailer full of downers, we just killed her along with them. We took a brain sample from her head because the USDA gives up $10 per sample.
If we would have unloaded her in the pens, we would have never caught the BSE. How many other walkers have BSE? We will never know. The USDA only tested the downers and cripples and only at our plant. We had only been taking brain samples for about a month when we found this one.
When the USDA said no more downers would be slaughtered, they essentially said no more BSE testing would be done. Vern's and every other slaughterhouse kept right on killing and selling Holstein meat from the same area as the mad cow with no BSE testing whatsoever. This is true and easily verifiable.
And just so the folks in Moses Lake don't feel left out, the beef head, tongue, liver, kidneys and tail were sold right here in the Columbia Basin. It's way past time for everybody to stop thinking with their bank accounts and start trying to find a way to stop the spread of BSE.
The minute the USDA found the contaminated cow, they stopped the brain stem collection and testing. Why? Ka-ching! It's the money. Billions.
If you want to be sure you and your family are eating safe meat, demand testing on every beef slaughter. It's quick and easy. Don't eat another piece of meat until you see a sticker that says tested and cleared for BSE on the package. BSE is 100 percent fatal -- if you or your kids get it, you die a very painful death. It's a slow, wasting disease. It's terrible.
Right now, a lot of people are telling you how safe their beef is, but they don't know if it is or is not without testing. That's their checkbook talking. Tat rendering plant in Canada wasn't feeding 81 cows, it was feeding thousands of cows.
Every second that goes by, more untested beef goes on the dinner plate. If you eat mad cow, you are going to get sick and you are going to die. Stand up and demand safe meat.
Dave Louthan
Moses Lake" Here is the address of the second article. http://www.kxly.com/common/getStory.asp?id=33347 I won't post the entire article here but the part that quotes Mr. Louthan follows:
Dave Louthan works at Verns and says he remembers this particular cow. He says contrary to what USDA officials have said, the cow did not look sick. USDA officials say the infected parts of that cow, the brain and spinal cord, would never have made it into the food supply - still Luthan worries about those parts contaminating other meat."The USDA said we do not have to worry. It is meat, if it was not in the food supply where would it be? Its meat there's no other use for it," said Louthan.
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