The Bush administration said Tuesday it will fight to keep meatpackers from testing all their animals for mad cow disease.
The Agriculture Department tests less than 1 percent of slaughtered cows for the disease, which can be fatal to humans who eat tainted beef. But Kansas-based Creekstone Farms Premium Beef wants to test all of its cows.
Larger meat companies feared that move because, if Creekstone tested its meat and advertised it as safe, they might have to perform the expensive test, too.
A federal judge ruled in March that such tests must be allowed. The ruling was to take effect June 1, but the Agriculture Department said Tuesday it would appeal — effectively delaying the testing until the court challenge plays out.
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And the ostensible basis for this is? Oh, wait, I know, we have no comment until the appeals process is completed, as Ponyboy would say. Or maybe something about government intrusion into the hardworking family farmers’ work or something like that.
Read the book The Family That Couldn’t Sleep, by D. T. Max, a horrific book about prion diseases. The chapter about mad cow in Great Britain is enough to make a vegetarian out of anyone.
Of course, since Bush doesn’t read, this is irrelevant.
I wonder if we could adopt some of the measures China has taken to deal with malfeasance in food safety.
As usual, it’s expediency first. Statistical testing is good enough for life and death matters like Mad Cow Disease. It’s not good enough for the U.S. Census.
well, that should help with selling to japan.
Please explain this to me.
If this company wants to do extra testing and advertise that fact, how can it not be their right to do so? Isn’t this the conservative position of individual liberty?
Conservative position? Bush and his cronies are radicals, not conservatives. They have no values other than the almighty dollar.