Industry Will Remember Veneman's Role In Dealing With Mad Cow
"We had three Secretaries of Agriculture during the Bush administration. [Anne] Veneman will likely be remembered for her response to bovine spongiform encephalopathy, which was then and is still incredibly damaging to the industry despite the fact that the enhanced testing protocol she initiated eventually exonerated the U.S. cattle herd," said Jeremy Russell, director of communications and government relations, National Meat Association.
Russell made his comments to MEAT & POULTRY, the Business Journal for Meat and Poultry Processors. Opinions about all three USDA Secretaries (Veneman, Mike Johanns, and Ed Schafer) can be found here.
It was Veneman who on Dec. 23, 2003 announced a cow born in Canada had made its way to Washington State and it carried Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease to the United States.
Veneman today heads up the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF).
My husband lay dying of CJD (acquired through neurosurgery) the last two weeks of 2003 when Anne Veneman announced the first Mad Cow in the U.S. It was surreal because I heard her saying things that were incorrect about the risk.
How ironic that I had become more of an expert in prion diseases than the Secretary of Agriculture in a few short months! I ended up participating as the "human face of the impact of prion diseases" as part of the Mad Cow Prevention Alliance in January 2004, giving Congressional briefings on BSE and prion diseases.
From there I became an advocate for broader public health preventative measures such as in medical and biologic devices and as I have followed food safety over the past 5 years since my husband died, I have become a believer that the U.S. needs to re-vamp its public health measures across the board.
As someone from ranch country, I see the other side of the issue as well, and the impact that lack of adequate testing and fear of BSE has had on the U.S. producers, especially the smaller ones, and the enormous toll that the BSE cases took on the industry in Canada.
We have just studied BSE in our class. Our wonderful classmate jake presented on this topic. This is our first comment as a class about BSE, and we are very excited about this topic and learning about ways to prevent BSE.