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Veneman could face scrutiny
By Jerry Hagstrom
DTN Political Correspondent
WASHINGTON, D.C. (DTN)--Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman, her staff, along with officials from the Food and Drug Administration are likely to come under intense scrutiny for their handling of the mad cow disease issue as appropriators in both houses of Congress begin examining the issue.
The Senate Appropriations Committee will have an oversight hearing on the government's response to several lower level U.S. Department of Agriculture officials who were scheduled to testify before the Senate Appropriations Committee Feb. 23, including Undersecretary for Food Safety Elsa Murano, Chief Economist Keith Collins and Chief Veterinarian Ron DeHaven and FDA Deputy Commissioner Lester Crawford. Veneman and FDA Commissioner Mark McClellan did not testify.
McClellan was scheduled to testify until he was nominated to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The agriculture department handles meat inspections, but the FDA is responsible for regulations on animal feed, which is believed to be the major method of transmission of mad cow disease.
The BSE response was also expected to be a hot topic Feb. 25 when Veneman made her annual appearance before the House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee. The undersecretaries of agriculture and some FDA officials, many of whom have played roles in the BSE response, are scheduled to make individual appearances before the house subcommittee in coming weeks.
Congressional interest in the BSE issue, partly because of members' desire to demonstrate an interest in protecting public health, was evident from the way that congressional staffers described today's hearing. A key house Democratic aide said without Veneman or McClellan, the Senate hearing would be "like understudy night on Broadway" compared with the House subcommittee hearing the next day.
The Senate Appropriations Committee, however, will present an opportunity for Congress to hear from Julie Louise Gerberding, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute on Allergies and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, who can discuss the implications of mad cow disease's transmission to human beings in the form of variant Creuzfeldt-Jakob disease.
Pennsylvania Agriculture Secretary Dennis Wolff is also expected to present the state perspective on BSE.
Bush administration officials initially won praise for their handling of the single case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, as mad cow disease is formally known, that was discovered in Washington state in December.
Veneman banned meat from so-called "downer" or non-ambulatory animals, and American consumer confidence and demand for beef have stayed high. But in recent weeks the situation has become more complicated. Almost all foreign countries closed their borders to U.S. beef and have not reopened them.
An international scientific panel assembled by Veneman recommended major changes the beef and rendering industries say are unnecessary and expensive. Officials and employees from the meat company in Washington state have also said the cow was not a "downer," and that assertion has raised questions about whether the USDA's emphasis on testing downer animals and banning meat from them in the food supply are necessary responses that will solve the problem. Members of Congress have introduced bills to codify the ban on downer meat, require testing of all animals and create a single independent food safety agency.
Date: 3/4/04
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