By J.T. Hardboiled

(Editor's Note: This was delivered to our copy room just before deadline. The fellow wore a trench coat, odd in the humid July heat but whatever. A fedora covered much of his face and what I could see looked like a cross between Humphrey Bogart and Harrison Ford. Good thing the cigarette hanging on his lower lip wasn't lit or I'd have 86'd him on the spot. He shoved a thick file in my hands and growled "Hold the presses -- ya might wanna look this over." He left without another word.

One Deep Throat comes out from under cover and another appears! Should we have published it? Dear Reader, you be the judge.)

Somewhere a lonely sax drawls through the humidity, while a ceiling fan stirs hot, dead air in my office. Light from a neon sign cuts through the slats of my Venetian blinds like bright knives through so much grassfed beef. Another blistering summer. I rest wingtips on desk with my sore feet still in them, push back my beatup fedora, and read the notes in my current case file:

"BSE. USDA. NCBA. IHC. CJD."

Heh. More capitals in a row than an angry letter from my ex.

I toss the file on my desk and rub my eyes. I've been reading about the USDA's handling of Bovine Spongiform Encephelopathy (a.k.a, BSE, a.k.a., Mad Cow) for so long I feel like I got holes in my brain. Why? Because this Mad Cow case is hot ­ red-hot. And it's about to get even hotter for the Department of Ag.

But hold up. How did things get so bad? Hard to say. I mean, this case has more twists than a weekend of martinis. Let me pour myself a soy chai on the rocks, light another American Spirit, and I'll give you the 411:

The Case of the November Cow Back

in November 2004, a cow went ill, see? The vet on site tested it with a rapid but inexact test called the IHC (immunohistochemistry test), and the USDA told the media that it came up negative for Mad Cow. One problem - the test was, in fact, positive. USDA claims the lab techie didn't mention that part to officials. Not surprising. When big bucks are on the line, lame becomes healthy, up becomes down, and wrong becomes right.

To clear the air, the Inspector General of the USDA called for further testing of the mean, with odds like that, they should have sent the beast to Vegas with a thousand samolians.

Now here's the problem I see, as I shuffle through the rest of my Mad Cow case file and stub out my smoke. If it were this one instance, this one lonely example of incompetence, I could file this case in the cabinet marked "Dumpster.&qot; But I ain't the kind of gumshoe who looks the other way. And neither should you. Just look at the other cases in this Mad Cow file of mine:

1) The Case of the Yakima Downer

In December 2003, a cow in Yakima, Washington tested positive for BSE. In this case, a veterinarian reported he had tested a &qout;downer," a sick cow. But three eyewitnesses on site contradicted his story, saying the cow was walking. A short while later, that vet clammed up and stopped talking to the papers.

Why? I guess because it's USDA policy to test downer cattle only. If Mad Cow were found in a healthy animal, it would give ammo to critics who say that far more cattle than the annual 388,000 should be tested.

That's less than 1% of the total U.S. herd, by the way. Like we used to say in Chinatown: "If you don't want to see the problem, inspector, keep your eyes shut."

2) The Case of the Lone Star Muzzle

April 2004 -- After it was determined that a downer cow exhibiting central nervous system disorders was not tested for Mad Cow, a USDA official slapped a gag order on veterinarians at the Texas processing plant where the cow was found.

More heat: Failing to test for downers is just as bad as finding Mad Cow in a healthy animal. Both cases imply that USDA protocols are as lame as, well, a Yakima downer.

3) The Case of the Literally Missing Brains

August 2004 -- Steve Mitchell of UPI reported, after filing for data under the Freedom of Information Act, that 500 high-risk (probably downer) cattle went untested for Mad Cow or the incorrect portion of their brains were collected, in 2003 and 2004.

Mitchell also reported, in June 2005, that Joe Oziano, a veterinarian from Veterinary Services in Michigan, said that a cow brain he sent to be tested for Mad Cow disease at the USDA's lab in Ames, Iowa in 1995, was "thrown away by lab personnel."

Lester Friedlander, a former USDA veterinarian, wonders how the untested cattle and the repeated stupidity of collecting the wrong brain portions went unnoticed at the USDA. &qout;Somebody (there) should've caught on, but instead it has to be somebody from UPI under the Freedom of Information Act," Friedlander told Mitchell. "How did it get by so many people?"

Are you humming this tune yet? Almost every time there's a Mad Cow test that shows the USDA something they don't want to see, there's a foul-up. Or a gag order. Or a gag order about the foul-up. I'm telling you, this case is funky as a feedlot floor.

Maybe Inspector General Phyllis Fong sees what I see, too, because Fong ordered an investigation of the USDA's testing regimen and also into claims of a cover-up. In May 2005, our friend Lester Friedlander made numerous accusations about the USDA's general corruption regarding its handling of Mad Cow. Now he says that the Office of the Inspector General is investigating him, which isn't such a bad thing, since Fong has been openly critical of the USDA's Mad Cow testing regimen.

"Among the accusations that Friedlander said the [Inspector General's] office is investigating," says Mitchell of UPI, "is an incident in 1991 in which he said Pat McCaskey, a USDA pathologist branch chief, told him not to say anything if he ever found a Mad Cow case."

If it's determined that there has been a pattern or policy of suppressing positive Mad Cow tests, it's going to get even hotter this summer. Like my office in August when I got the long, wool pants on.

However, it ain't the heat, but the timidity that gets me. The USDA is afraid. Afraid of testing for Mad Cow because they're afraid they'll actually find Mad Cow. They're afraid that more cases of BSE will mean billions more dollars lost for the U.S. beef industry. The weekend in June that the November cow was reported to have BSE, Taiwan and South Korea banned U.S. beef -- and $3 billion evaporated.

Hard to blame 'em. I get uptight when I lose quarters in the sofa.

But, hey, these countries are afraid, too -- afraid of the human health risk that Mad Cow poses. Some scientists say that eating BSE-infected beef is linked to Creutzfeld-Jakob Disease (CJD), which, like Mad Cow, carves holes in the victims' brains. Other scientists say that's bull -- if there were a connection, why weren't there thousands of CJD cases during the rampant Mad Cow epidemic in England back in the eighties and nineties?

Whichever way you cut that brisket, all scientists agree that a Mad Cow/CJD link is possible, if for no other reason than the dormancy period for CJD may be years, even decades long. So doctors may only now be witnessing the link between Mad Cow and CJD. That, and many Alzheimers' cases are now being reconsidered and rediagnosed as CJD cases.

If the USDA stopped acting like a two-bit crook getting shaken down by Johnny Law and created a strict testing regimen, maybe they could (a) shed light into Mad Cow's true relationship to CJD on an epidemiological level, and (b) inspire a decent tracking and surveillance system for the beef industry (modeled on, say, organics) -- one that would instill confidence, instead of peals of shrieking, horrified laughter from our trading partners.

Even big business is unimpressed with the USDA's handling of Mad Cow. Take a look at what Jim McAdams, president of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association (NCBA), the very kind of organization that the USDA exists to support, said about the current Mad Cow crisis:

"The NCBA ... simply cannot tolerate actions that serve political pressures or pseudo-science over a sound surveillance program. The only reason this particular sample [the 'November cow'] ever became a major concern is the apparent break from established scientific protocol by USDA, which we feel has not been adequately explained."

When a major player at your card table criticizes your dealing, it might be time to clean up the game -- in this case, test more cattle and make those tests open and available in a timely fashion.

But that ain't likely for the USDA. They control the pot, the bet, the deal, and the table -- and it's all as tired as a really, really overworked metaphor. According to the diligent Steve Mitchell of UPI:

"The USDA plans to scale back its BSE testing program in 2006. Its proposed Mad Cow testing budget for fiscal year 2006 would fund testing of only 40,000 animals.&qout; Down from that measly 380,000, which IG Fong called "statistically insignificant."

In other words, even after billions in lost revenue for U.S. beef, the Department of Ag still can't feel the heat from Mad Cow.

Yet.

So I'll just light another coffin nail, kick back with my iced chai, and wait for the fire to climb. They'll feel it eventually -- like a burger feels the barbecue, like a steak feels the flame, like a brat feels the broil. Just make mine organic, ok, chef?