Posted on 10/13/2004 7:18:05 AM PDT by Calpernia
Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund of the United Stockgrowers of America, Billings, Montana, reported that it has fielded numerous calls from members and media inquiring about recent news reports that indicate byproduct proteins of the bovine spongiform encephalopathy-positive cow discovered in Canada in May 2003 were rendered into livestock feed and may have been mistakenly fed to cattle.
R-CALF stated in a release that USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has known of this problem for more than one year. R-CALF cited an APHIS report dated October 3, 2003, as the source of this information.
In formal comments to APHIS on January 5, 2004, R-CALF wrote: "Even more alarming is that the BSE infected cow discovered in Canada on May 20, 2003, was rendered in Canada, and APHIS reported that the rendered cow could have been distributed to approximately 1,800 sites, including 1,200 individual producers or consumers."
R-CALF USA president Leo McDonnell continued: "We are extremely disappointed that USDA -- charged with protecting the economic interests of the U.S. cattle industry under its congressional mandate to prevent, detect, control, and eradicate animal diseases -- has not addressed this problem in a more serious context, especially in light of its own efforts to liberalize U.S. import standards when dealing with countries like Canada where BSE has been found."
R-CALF said it warned APHIS in its January comments that the distribution of the Canadian cow's infected remains within the Canadian animal-feed system.
ping
Is cattle feed ever given to horses?
I don't know about whether it goes into feed but it goes into supplements such as those containing bone meal or bone ash.
R-CALF should get a rating right up with PETA. Their politically driven, scare-tactic, poor science, big government intervention, money-waste, anti-trade agenda would have and is having serious industry consequences.
Don't be fooled by their propaganda.
Prairie
bump!
I enjoyed a nice steak last night :)
Since I ping the list before I added you, you get your own ping for this one.
Wow, I'm touched. :)
I grilled three of those extra thick Rib Eye steaks from Costco last night for us. MMmmmmmmm.....
Many of us have long suspected that you were.
BTTT!!!!!!!
Around these parts, we pronounce it "tetched".
He knows damned well the meatpacking industry is interested in promoting imported cattle to fatten their margins. The meatpackers (an oligopoly) are playing games to prevent the USDA from implementing country of origin labeling, so far, quite successfully.
Interestingly R-CALF supports COOL only up until the point where it employs individual animal identification. Then it's "WHOA NELLY! We don't want anything to be able to be traced back to OUR feedlots!"
Sort of defeats the purpose of the former to obstruct the latter, wouldn't you say?
Prairie
Agreed. This in-fat-uation with feedlots and the way we overlook their quality problems, simply to create a market for subsidized grain, has out-lived its usefulness. Real accountability favors the family rancher, at least in my book.
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