US Mad Cow Was Not A Downer, Has Been Eaten

Contrary to reports from the federal Department of Agriculture, he asserts that the cow he killed was not too sick to walk. And it was caught not by routine surveillance, he says, but by "a fluke": he killed it outdoors because he feared it would trample other cows lying prostrate in its trailer, and the plant's testing program called for sampling cows killed outside only.

"Mad cows aren't downers," he said. "They're up and they're crazy." The Agriculture Department disputes his account. Dr. Kenneth Petersen, a food safety official, faxed copies of the Dec. 9 inspector's report saying the cow was "sternal," or down on its chest.

Mr. Louthan said he believed the government changed the report on Dec. 23, during the panic at Vern's when a positive test was found. The "smoking gun," he said, is that it is the only one on the page marked "unable to get temp" while other cows' temperatures were recorded. It is easy, he said, to get a rectal temperature from a downed cow but hard from a jumpy one.

The department has not changed last year's plans to test 40,000 cows nationwide this year, out of 30 million slaughtered. Janet Riley, a spokeswoman for the American Meat Institute, which represents slaughterhouses, called that "plenty sufficient from a statistical standpoint."

Mr. Louthan said the agent who ordered him to be quiet suggested that he was akin to "an urban terrorist" for spreading alarm about beef.

"I'm not," Mr. Louthan said. "I just want to enjoy my cheeseburger like anybody else. I don't want to think: Is this the magic burger that's going to kill me?"