What inspection procedures are in place to protect consumers and downed animals?
Although downed animals are considered suspect and thus required to undergo pre-slaughter and post-slaughter inspection, USDA inspection methods are grossly inadequate. The pre-slaughter inspection typically takes just a few minutes to assess whether the animal is exhibiting blatant signs of neurological disease, and possibly to take the animal s temperature. The post slaughter inspection typically involves looking at internal organs (i.e. kidney, liver) for signs of disease visible to the naked eye. These methods are inadequate to detect mad cow disease or the host of other pathogens that may afflict downed livestock. Dr. Lester Friedlander, a USDA veterinary inspector for ten years, writes: I have literally seen thousands of nonambulatory cattle (downers) being slaughtered, which, in my professional judgment, should have been condemned…USDA does not use any scientific or microbial testing to determine their true condition…In can tell you that CNS [i.e. central nervous system dise
