06/20/05 Who and what they knew about bse test

American Rancher June 20, 2005 Many people in the beef industry and beyond are wondering who knew what and when? The question stems from the timing of USDA's roundtable discussion recently on BSE held in Minneapolis, a day before the department announced additional retesting turned up a possible BSE positive U.S. cow. A cow that had previously tested negative. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns explains what he knew and when. Johanns: "Just before I walked into that roundtable I was alerted that some kind of testing was going on. And that was really the extent of my information at that time. We really did not have any results." Johanns says he shared the test results publicly shortly after receiving them. Johanns: "Once I did have the information and the final tests were back Friday evening I literally within a couple of minutes I was speaking publicly about what I knew. Again, until I get good information, which I did not have before the BSE Rountable, it was premature to talk about what that might be." Jim McAdams, president of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association has written the Agriculture Secretary expressing his organization's concern about issues related to USDA's announcement regarding the additional test results. McAdams says a full explanation is expected of the circumstances that caused the Office of Inspector General to recommend the additional testing. I'm Bob Hoff.