Mad Cow Madness: USDA Stands in the Way of Broader Testing

[depakid]

The FDA is a textbook example of a captured agency. It will be interesting to see what the epi curves on CJD look like over the next decade. There are already a few unusual clusters.

CHICAGO -- If a hospital wanted to advertise that it upholds sanitary standards higher than any required by the government, no one would object. A used-car dealer who decided to offer only vehicles with the best crash-test scores would be free to do so. But after a meatpacker announced plans to establish the strictest program around to protect consumers from mad cow disease, the U.S. Department of Agriculture replied: fat chance.

Eating meat from animals afflicted with the illness can cause irreversible, fatal damage to the brain. Last month, a cow in Alabama was found to be infected, the third confirmed case in this country. Canada, which has similar regulations to prevent the disease, has had five. You would think those cases would indicate the need for more testing of cattle to keep contaminated beef off our tables. In fact, the USDA, which now tests only 1 percent of all slaughtered cows, is planning to cut back on that effort. Crazier yet, it also intends to keep anyone else from conducting more tests.

One company wants to do exactly that. Creekstone Farms, a premium meatpacker based in Kansas, knows bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, can be deadly for business. After the first American case was discovered in 2003, some 58 countries banned shipments of American beef, costing Creekstone about $100 million in sale.

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What he didn't account for was that his own government would bar him from doing what his customers want him to do. Creekstone's plan, it said, would undermine federal attempts to "maintain domestic and international confidence in U.S. cattle and beef products." To let the company adopt a more stringent regime would imply the USDA rules were inadequate. The National Cattlemen's Beef Association agreed, complaining that "if you let one company step out and do that, other companies would have to follow." So last month, Creekstone filed a lawsuit requesting the right to cater to its customers.

More: http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0426-25.htm

[BrklynLiberal]

1. Care to bet a large amount of money that the meat industry is behind this?

They don't want to look bad by not ALL doing the testing, BUT they don't want to go for the bucks that it would cost to do the testing.
After all, they don't want to have to cut into their profits just for the sake of a few people who might get a deadly disease.

[JohnWxy]

3. I'm not so sure. I think a lot of beef producers want to have more safety

built into the system. They know if there is a case of any infected animal getting into the food supply it would kill the beef industry. (although, I'm sure there are others who are willing to gamble to make an extra (with lower costs) buck.

I'm gonna have to start weaning myself off beef...It's just a matter of time.

[Turbineguy]

2. In Washington State

there has been a large number (statistically) of deaths from CJD

http://www.organicconsumers.org/madcow/CJD21804.cfm

Whenever I hear a story of an older person's sudden turn to bizarre behavior I have to wonder if it's the beginnings of CJD

[philb]

4. Those in power currently have a policy- don't test and public won't know

In the last eight years, environmental regulation agencies-both federal and state have dumbed down their web pages, removed information that would cause public to be concerned about toxics,
and cut back severely on testing of all types.

If you don't test, the public mostly doesn't know there is a problem,

but the adverse health effects affect most people and most families,
even if they don't know what is causing their problems,
we live in a very toxic world these days, affecting large numbers of people.