Mad Sheep: The True Story Behind the USDA's War on a Family Farm

By Linda Faillace

Summarized with permission of Chelsea Green. All rights reserved.

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A few weeks later, Linda Faillace heard there was more information held by the USDA and used the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to request the data. Two weeks after the request, the FOIA revealed four hundred negative results on sheep, including additional negative tests on the four sheep that Rubenstein and the USDA claimed were positive. Davis Buckley asked the court to force the USDA to surrender their entire file, which consisted of over 1,000 pages. Larry and Linda spent hours in Davis's conference room poring over the documents and learned:

• In June of 1999 Mr. Freeman gave sixty-five lambs from his flock of more than 250 to the USDA. The sheep were killed, and the USDA sent the brains to National Veterinary Services Laboratory (NVSL), where they were tested using histopathology and immunohistochemistry (IHC). All animals tested negative.
• If American cattle are negative by histopathology then nothing else is done, but when European sheep test negative, the USDA goes to extraordinary measures to keep testing, attempting to find a positive. If all else fails, the USDA will concoct positive test results in order to justify their actions.
• The third eyelids of the sheep were extracted and sent to Dr. Katharine O'Rourke, who tested all of them in August of 1999. Every single one was negative.
• When all this testing was completed, the remaining tissue was then thrown in a freezer where it began to autolyze (enzymes within the cells begin the process of self-digestion).
• Finally, after the Faillaces refused to give in to the USDA's demands to hand over the sheep, the USDA sent the freezer-burned samples (which were now a year old) to Rubenstein, who contrived four false positives using extremely shoddy testing.
• On Oct. 30, 2000 Linda heard that Congress had appropriated $2.4 million contingent on the destruction of the sheep by Nov. 17, 2000. The family was adamantly opposed to any offer of money in exchange for their sheep. The Faillaces had submitted their appraisal, which valued the sheep at over $11.8 million. The USDA offered $4.1 million to Mr. Freeman and the Faillaces, together. Mr. Freeman told the Faillaces they could have his share and he would continue the fight to keep his sheep. When Davis presented this offer to the USDA, they responded that they would only offer $1 million without Freeman's sheep. The Faillaces refused, and the fight continued.

Meanwhile, the entire community was behind the shepherds; there had to be some way to stop the USDA. Together they tried every possible tactic:

• Save Our Sheep (SOS) meetings were held with increasing frequency.
• SOS bumper stickers were seen on cars up and down the East Coast.
• Rural Vermont (a farm advocacy group) staff members wrote many articles in support of the Freemans and Faillaces.
• Edie Connellee organized fundraisers at American Flatbread to help pay their legal fees.
• Many people wrote letter after letter to newspapers and to their Vermont elected officials urging them to stop the USDA.
• People from across the world called and/or wrote in support.
• Jim McRae, former president of the Vermont Sheep Breeder's Association and fellow sheep farmer, established an SOS Web site with the help of his friend Don Green.
• Friends and neighbors formed FACT (Farmers and Citizens for Truth), an organization that spoke not only on their behalf but looked at the larger issues behind USDA corruption.

 

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