Mad cow case won't stall border opening

[catgirl]

I love how politics come before people's safety.

Here's the USA Today link:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=710&ncid=710&e=3&u=/usatoday/20050104/pl_usatoday/madcowcasewontstallborderreopening

[Mithras61]

1. Reminds me of Marie Antoinette...

Will the 'thugs get nailed with "let them eat beef!"?

[arnp2000]

2. I'm just glad

we aren't taking their contaminated meat!

[catgirl]

3. No, we ARE taking their meat

We're opening our borders and importing their beef. Bush made
some side deal with Canada...we'll take your beef if you do this...

[achtung_circus]

4. Nonsense

There is in fact greater surveillance for BSE in Canada than there is the the US. USDA has prohibited indusrty groups from proceeding with thier own suveillasnce programmes, the speculation is that USDA doesn't want to do "too" much BSE testing for fear of what they find.

Pay no attention to R-CALF, they are a fairly radical protectionist group lobbying for no foreign food or products to be imported into the US.

Currently meat from Candadian cattle less than 30 months old can be imported into the US. The change merely allows live cattle imports, as well.

[LynnTheDem]

5. OOPS! Actually mad cow has been reported in New York,

Canada monitors much closer than we do, and in fact bush says he will be LOWERING the US monitoring requirements.

Enjoy!

[catgirl]

6. Mad cow has been here all along

the ban on Canada beef was the result of blaming Canada
for a cow found with MC disease in WA state (I believe).
Remember, no one is supposed to know it is here.

The reason for my post: what was the deal w/ Canada, and
why hasn't anyone questioned Bs decision to import the beef
again? Now another case has been publicized in Canada,
yet Bush ignores it. Very fishy.

[catgirl]

7. Another tidbit

A monitor group from Canada snuck into a factory farm in the US
and took some animal feed for testing. The results? There were
animal products in the feed. Madcow disease is caused by feeding cows diseased animal parts.

[achtung_circus]

10. Do you have a source for that?

I monitor the livestock animal/meat inspection system and I haven't heard that one.

[LynnTheDem]

8. The NY mad cow is from US beef.

bush only put in the Cdn ban as a "punishment" because Canada is a DEMOCRACY whose PM listened to the wishes of the very vast majority of his citizens who said HELL NO to bush's war of aggression on Iraq.

bush's idea of democracy is everyone doing what he tells them to do.

What worries me the most is his statement that he will LOWER the US monitoring requirements! We're supposed to just "trust" the US beef industry to monitor properly. I don't trust ANY BUSINESS to put ME ahead of their profits ta very much Mr. bush!

I do like veggies...

[warrens]

9. The Washington cow was born in Canada

Before its feed ban went into effect in 1997. The adulterated feed was found in Canadian feed samples; over half had some animal protein but they never did DNA tests to determine if it was ruminant protein. There are a lot of ways, from using the same truck for chicken feed as for bovine feed.

The real scandal is the acceptance of cattle parts, DANGEROUS cattle parts, in poultry feed. Brains, spinal columns, etc., where prions grow. And blood, which transmits prions. It appears to be no danger to the chickens, but, and this is gross, they grind up what is euphemistically called poultry litter and put it in cattle feed.

If ever there was a clear loophole in protection against BSE, that's it. It makes no sense at all to allow this, but of course someone is making a lot of money on the practice.

[daleo]

11. Canada did tests on "vegetable matter only" feed a while back

Over half of the bags had animal matter in them. That included 17 test bags that were imported, presumably from the U.S. So, people are overly optimistic to think the situation is any different in the U.S. than it is in Canada.