gwb Admin Shuts Down Voluntary Mad Cow Inspections

[Psychoblues]

The Bush Administration is making clear (to those just catching on) what it means when it CLAIMS to believe in "free markets".

Not only has the administration bowed to lobbyist demands that it NOT INSTITUTE comprehensive testing for mad cow disease, but is now using federal power to protect Big Agriculture from competition from Creekstone Farms Premium Beef, a small Kansas company that wants to test all of its own products VOLUNTARILY.

Yep, for today's Republican Party, "free markets" ,makes for great rhetoric.

(For the GOP, "free markets" are dandy. . . . . just don't let some upstart entrepreneur become a threat to the wallets of the fat cats stuffing your campaign coffers. Why, if you let some little Kansas operation offer beef actually inspected for and free of mad cow disease, that might force the big boys to inspect their beef too. . . . . Or worse. Why, what if Americans were to hear about a sick cow? Holy cow, they might choose vegetables!)







US on Mad Cow: Don't Test All Cattle

Agriculture Department Fights to Keep Meatpackers From Testing All Cattle for Mad Cow


By MATT APUZZO
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON

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.

The Agriculture Department regulates the test and argued that widespread testing could lead to a false positive that would harm the meat industry.

A federal judge ruled in March that such tests must be allowed. U.S. District Judge James Robertson noted that Creekstone sought to use the same test the government relies on and said the government didn't have the authority to restrict it.

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.

Mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, is linked to more than 150 human deaths worldwide, mostly in Britain.

There have been three cases of mad cow disease in the U.S. The first, in December 2003 in Washington state, was in a cow that had been imported from Canada. The second, in 2005, was in a Texas-born cow. The third was confirmed last year in an Alabama cow.

It would appear that the GOP is as sincere about "free markets" as they are about the responsible fiscal policy, "small government", the "rule of law", "defending the constitution", "individual liberty", and "spreading democracy".


What next from the "conservative" linguistic geniuses who have enlightened us with "unitary executive" theory?

Much More: http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=3222947

When is enough, enough?

[Said1]

They should be tested and arrive with clean papers from the breeder, if they don't already.

[Sir Evil]

Psycho, have you been tested yet?

Really though I can feel your worries on this one with the whopping 3 cases.
Not really sure what to say as the article doesn't appear to say why the administration would be against the testing. I'm sure those are cost effective corner cutting issues. I think this part stands out:

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.

So now the agriculture department tests less than 1 percent anyway, so with the administration maybe supporting some of the meatpackers out there you wanna know when enough is enough?



This is really reaching, even for you Psycho!

[Sir Evil]

They should be tested and arrive with clean papers from the breeder, if they don't already.

What, and not allow Bush to spread massive amounts of mad cow disease around the world just because he's a prick?

[manu1959]

There have been three cases of mad cow disease in the U.S.

PANIC!

[Sir Evil]

PANIC!

[diuretic]

I hope our beef producers are making a big fuss about this. The US is cutting into our markets again, primarily in South Korea, so it would be great if we could convince them that US beef could be dodgy and to take ours because it's known to be disease free.

[hjmick]

Fuck it, eat chicken if you think it's that big a threat.

[hjmick]

I mean seriously, you do realize that more people have died eating salad in the last twelve months than there have been cases of mad cow disease in the last four years. Salad. Bad lettuce and spinach have done more damage in the U.S. than mad cow disease.

BAN BROCCOLI NOW!

LETTUCE DOES NOT DISCRIMINATE! IT KILLS EVERYONE! BAN IT NOW!

POPEYE HATES US! STOP SPINACH NOW!

[Kathianne]

PANIC!

Exactly. There have been 4 cow with BSE in US:

As of May 2007, fourteen cases of BSE have been identified in North America. Of these fourteen cases, three were identified in the U.S. and eleven in Canada. Of the three cases identified in the U.S., one was born in Canada; of the 11 cases identified in Canada, one was imported from the United Kingdom. The proportion of Canadian-born BSE cases identified by Canadian authorities through the testing of animals in Canada, 2003-April 2007 (10 cases among approximately 160,000 animals tested) is presently statistically significantly higher (26 fold higher) than the proportion of U.S.-born BSE cases identified by U.S. authorities through the testing of animals in the U.S. during the comparable period (2 cases among more than 875,000 animals tested).

Six of the eleven BSE cases in Canadian-born cattle were known to have been born after the implementation of the 1997 Canadian feed ban; five of these six were born more than eighteen months afterwards. One of the eleven Canadian-born BSE cases was reported in an animal that was born either before or shortly after implementation of the 1997 feed ban.

The BSE strain that is responsible for most of the BSE cases in Canada is the same strain linked to the outbreak in the United Kingdom. This strain has not yet been identified in any U.S.-born bovine. Both of the U.S.-born BSE cases and one Canadian-born BSE case were 10 years of age or older and all three of these older cases were linked to an atypical BSE strain known as the H-strain.

One (9%) of the 11 Canadian-born BSE cases and 2 (100%) of the U.S.-born BSE cases occurred in animals that were known to be at least ten years of age. These significantly different (P<.05) proportions correlate with the observed BSE strain differences in the two countries because, to date, only the older cattle have the atypical H strain.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) is enhancing Canadian feed controls to more effectively prevent and quickly eliminate BSE from Canada. CFIA’s new feed control regulations will ban most proteins, including potentially BSE infectious tissues known as “specified risk materials” (SRM) from all animal feeds, pet foods, and fertilizers, not just from cattle feed as required by the ban instituted in 1997. The 1997 feed ban in Canada was similar to the feed ban instituted in the United States that same year. As recently reported by CFIA, removing SRM from the entire animal feed system addresses risks associated with the potential contamination of cattle feed during production, distribution, storage, and use. Applying the same measure to pet food and fertilizer materials addresses the possible exposure of cattle and other susceptible animals to these products. This enhanced Canadian feed ban is scheduled to come into effect on July 12, 2007. CFIA expects that with this new ban, BSE should be eliminated from the Canadian cattle herd by about the year 2017.

Additional Case of BSE Detected in Canada: On May 2, 2007, the 11 th case of BSE in a Canadian-born bovine was identified by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA). The eleven cases include one in a Canadian-born bovine identified in the United States in 2003 (see bar graph below). Preliminary information indicates that this most recent BSE case occurred in a mature dairy cow from British Columbia born in 2001, about 4 years after the 1997 Canadian feed ban.

For more information about BSE in Canada, see the Canada Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) website.

http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:...ient=firefox-a

The government doesn't want a panic to break out, that would hurt both farmers and the public.

[typomaniac]

gwb Admin Shuts Down Voluntary Mad Cow Inspections

Probably Bush just thought that, if the cows are already mad, they're not likely to volunteer.

[Said1]

Probably Bush just thought that, if the cows are already mad, they're not likely to volunteer.

Is that you in the avatar?

[JohnDoe]

And the BELIEF in the free market??? What happened to this, the belief in a free market? This is Bullcrap for the government to stop private entities from testing all of their cows.

The small company that wants to do this, wants an edge against their competitors...they should be allowed to do such imo....even if mad cow is not prevelent in the USA there are plenty of people that worry about it out there and they should be able to ease their own minds with this kind of product on the market.

This reminds me of a lawsuit the milk industry placed against a small time milk producer who used no hormones or vacinations in any of their cattle that they got their milk from and labling their cartons of milk products that they were hormone and vacination free. The BIG BUSINESS milk companies sued this small company saying that when they labeled their product in that manner made the BIG BUSINESS milk industry's milk seem as though something was wrong with it, by using hormones and vacinations on their cattle.... i don't know who won the case but i am going to look it up now to find out.

I think it is wrong to not allow the free market work in this case and wrong for the government to interphere, taking sides with one private entity over another. They should have allowed the big corporations to sue the small time business to stop them from doing it and allow the courts to decide if it was a detriment imo.

jd

[typomaniac]

Is that you in the avatar?

See this post for the answer.

[manu1959]

And the BELIEF in the free market??? What happened to this, the belief in a free market? This is Bullcrap for the government to stop private entities from testing all of their cows.

The small company that wants to do this, wants an edge against their competitors...they should be allowed to do such imo....even if mad cow is not prevelent in the USA there are plenty of people that worry about it out there and they should be able to ease their own minds with this kind of product on the market.

This reminds me of a lawsuit the milk industry placed against a small time milk producer who used no hormones or vacinations in any of their cattle that they got their milk from and labling their cartons of milk products that they were hormone and vacination free. The BIG BUSINESS milk companies sued this small company saying that when they labeled their product in that manner made the BIG BUSINESS milk industry's milk seem as though something was wrong with it, by using hormones and vacinations on their cattle.... i don't know who won the case but i am going to look it up now to find out.

I think it is wrong to not allow the free market work in this case and wrong for the government to interphere, taking sides with one private entity over another. They should have allowed the big corporations to sue the small time business to stop them from doing it and allow the courts to decide if it was a detriment imo.

jd

are you pro free market when it comes to health care and sub prime loans....