By Linda Fallaice
This was the response we sent to Senator Patrick Leahy regarding the statements made in his letter in the May 19, 2016, issue of The Valley Reporter.
Dear Senator Leahy,
I was dismayed when I read your letter in last week’s Valley Reporter. Particularly your statement that “Four sheep were found by an independent laboratory to test positive for transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, or TSE.”
According to your website, “Senator Leahy introduced the Criminal Justice and Forensic Science Reform Act to strengthen and improve the criminal justice system by helping to ensure that evidence derived from forensic science analysis is accurate, credible and scientifically grounded” (italics, my emphasis).
As you were aware, in August of 2000 (seven months prior to the USDA seizure of our sheep flock), we discovered through Freedom of Information Act requests (FOIA’s) that the USDA withheld evidence that the four sheep had tested negative for any TSE on three different tests. This should have been enough to call into question not only the integrity of the USDA officials who were involved but also the credibility of the “independent” laboratory and their supposed positive test results.
Despite this new evidence, the USDA was somehow able to convince not only you but the governor, the commissioner of agriculture, the commissioner of health for Vermont and the Vermont Veterinary Medical Association to support their action to kill all our animals.
After our entire flock was needlessly killed by the USDA, we discovered that the independent laboratory was shut down for “gross negligence” and all the test results were declared invalid. Even more disturbing was the discovery that the USDA had attempted to confirm the supposed positive test results from the outside lab. They re-ran the same four samples using the same exact test in their own facility in Ames, Iowa, and every single sample tested negative.
The date of these test results? July 14, 2000. The very same day that (as you mentioned in your letter) “Based on the information available to him, former Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman issued a declaration of ‘extraordinary emergency.’”
On July 21, 2000, USDA’s attorney, Joseph Perella told Judge Murtha, “Your Honor, we maintain our position that the burden on the Plaintiff is to show that the test the Government utilized is arbitrary and capricious. And in order to do that, they must show that the Department of Agriculture ignored some scientific information available at the time that conclusively established that this test was ineffective.”
As the plaintiff, we have to draw the inescapable conclusion that the evidence that would have enabled us to demonstrate an arbitrary enforcement action was deliberately withheld, and the USDA and their attorneys knew that.
My family and I are left with many questions. How was the USDA able to perpetrate this fraud? Why did it take FOIAs to get the USDA to release test results on our animals and Mr. Freeman’s flock? How could such a vital piece of evidence (the Ames, Iowa, negative test results) be hidden for seven years, not only from ourselves but from the secretary of agriculture and the court? How do we ensure this never happens again to another Vermont family?
I would like to meet with you personally to discuss these matters. Also, since you were a former prosecutor and co-sponsor of the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act, I want to talk with you about the USDA whistleblower who contacted me with evidence that the USDA knew there was nothing wrong with our sheep and the reprehensible reasons for their actions.
I look forward to our meeting.
Linda Faillace lives in Warren.
