More mad cow revelations on their way

Tom Ellestad, manager of Vern's Moses Lake Meats, is planning to speak up. Ellestad told me today he is working with a non-profit watchdog group critical of the government's cattle testing program.

Ellestad will "tell his side of the story" Wednesday, said Jack Pannell, a spokesman for the Government Accountability Project in Washington, D.C. The group, which also has a Seattle office, is known for protecting government whistleblowers and encouraging citizen activists.

Vern's Moses Lake Meats was one of the few slaughterhouses in the nation to participate in the government's voluntary testing program for mad cow disease. Ellestad talked to the news media shortly after the mad cow story broke, telling the Columbia Basin Herald on Dec. 24 that the cow in question was not a "downer."