SACRAMENTO — In the wake of confirmation that a U.S.-reared animal had mad cow disease, California cattle ranchers and grocers are battling consumer, health and labor groups over legislation aimed at allaying fears about tainted meat.
One lawmaker wants to require that beef carry labels showing its country of origin, and to force health authorities to make detailed public announcements about recalls of all contaminated meat and poultry. Another wants to permit ranchers to voluntarily test their cattle for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, so-called mad cow disease.
Federal regulations bar testing, labeling and detailed disclosure about recalls. Foes of the state effort say that federal law takes precedence and that courts would strike down any state statutes. But consumer groups, saying the federal government is soft on meat producers, hope California can force the issue by approving state laws that might pressure the federal government to act.
"It is time for agriculture to step into the 21st century and realize they are part of the larger society," said state Sen. Mike Machado, a Democrat from the San Joaquin Valley town of Linden. "We need to do whatever we can to say that we have the best-quality and safest food."
Machado is a third-generation farmer whose father and uncle raise cattle. But he is angering influential agricultural organizations and many cattle ranchers with plans to reintroduce a cattle-testing bill he offered unsuccessfully last year.
A country-of-origin labeling measure, pushed by Assemblyman Paul Koretz (D-West Hollywood) and backed by consumer groups, labor and some farmers, is pending in the state Senate. A recall disclosure bill, by Sen. Jackie Speier (D-Hillsborough), supported by county and city public health officers, is set for a vote in an Assembly committee Tuesday.
Most Democratic legislators are siding with labor and consumer groups in favor of labeling and disclosure. Republicans are lining up against both, and are expected to align themselves with much of the cattle industry to fight testing.
"It unnecessarily sensationalizes the disease and it sends a message to consumers that this [mad cow disease] is a legitimate food safety threat in this country. We know that it is not," said Ben Higgins, executive vice president of the California Cattlemen's Assn.
Higgins said the cattle industry and the U.S. Department of Agriculture have taken steps to combat BSE. Most notably, the government has banned cattle feed that includes cattle parts, believing that is the main way the disease is transmitted.
Consumer advocates and some public health experts believe more should be done. Consumer's Union, for example, has called for testing of all cattle older than 20 months, more stringent feed requirements and a tracking system for all cattle from birth to slaughter.
"The USDA is putting a whole lot of effort into not looking for BSE," said Elisa Odabashian of the nonprofit Consumers Union, which is backing all three measures in the Legislature.
More than 150 people in Europe, mostly in Britain, have died of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a condition attributed to eating beef from an animal with BSE. The disease leads to brain damage and invariably is fatal.
The concerns of consumer advocates and some legislators were heightened last week after federal officials confirmed that a Texas-reared cow that died seven months ago had the brain-wasting infection -- making it the first domestic animal proven to have had mad cow disease.
But at a convention of the California Cattlemen's Assn. here last week, the talk was anything but gloomy. Beef producers said one case of mad cow -- discovered among 400,000 diseased and injured cattle tested by federal authorities last year -- shows the safety of beef. They noted that the animal never entered the human food supply.
"There are some people on the fringes of the Legislature who don't care about facts and are headline-grabbing," said Mark Nelson, a cattle rancher near Sacramento and president of the cattlemen's association.
John Harris, owner of Harris Ranch Beef Co., called the legislative attention "frustrating, because the American beef supply is safe." He said additional steps, such as tracking, should be taken nationally, not state by state.
Health experts and consumer advocates cite events that they say reveal weak links in the system of public notification about tainted meat.
In September 2002, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and California Department of Health Services entered into an agreement in which the federal government said it would provide the state with details about meat and poultry recalls -- on the condition that the state promise to keep secret key information such as the names of stores that had sold tainted meat.
