Posted on 05/30/2007 12:41:36 PM PDT by Shermy
Judge: Government must allow meatpackers' tests for mad cow
The federal government must allow meatpackers to test their animals for mad cow disease, a federal judge ruled Thursday.
Creekstone Farms Premium Beef, a meatpacker based in Arkansas City, Kan., wants to test all of its cows for the disease, which can be fatal to humans who eat tainted beef. Larger meat companies feared that move because if Creekstone tested its meat and advertised it as safe, they could be forced to do the expensive test, too.
The Agriculture Department currently regulates the test and administers it to less than 1 percent of slaughtered cows. The department threatened Creekstone with prosecution if it tested all its animals.
...
Last July, the department cut its testing by about 90 percent. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said testing should reflect ‘‘a very, very low level'' of the disease in the United States. ......
If I oppose Bush on this,
will he label me that I,
“don’t want to do what’s right for America.”
??
i.e. our competitors might actually gain a competitive advantage.
If a small private meat packer wishes to test their animals, then, what is the governments beef?
One is led to ask, what are we trying to cover up here? As long as the packing house pays for the tests, then it should be free trade. This has an appearance of restraint of trade.
Count me in as someone completely against Bush on this. Government again sticking its nose where it doesn’t belong. If a company wants to voluntarily test — let it. The market will decide which steaks to buy.
And the results probably wouldn’t be what the industry wants.
Does anybody know? Do the Chinese import any beef from us? If so, test EVERY cow ONCE and ship EVERY false positive, positive, straight to China. I’m willing to pay the additional costs for one test/cow if they do that.
I guess JORGE is a little pissed after the 2006 elections. Or he is pissed after the sheeple are giving him flack over amnesty. Either way, Jorge is pissed.
Here’s the rub: The United States agriculture system is not a free market. It is a fascist system which limits competition, keeps inefficient producers in business, and increases the cost of food to the consumer.
And here’s another dirty little secret: Most Americans love this real world application of fascism.
I believe that what they fear are accurate, not inaccurate, test results.
But there is no reason to worry. We can trust the government to keep our food and pet food completely safe.
A: Because Mad Cow Disease was already taken.
This is so insane that
El Presidente and the head of the Agencies that
fight this reasonable Order should put up their
own families fortune and homes as collateral if any
case of BSE occurs in America. Then, they should
be tried for murder, accomplice before the fact,
as each and every person thereafter dies.
[oh, that’s right, they have sovereign immunity and can
murder the very Americans that put them in Office
with impunity. THAT is why there is no border security
and no care about poisons-du jour from China]
How many deaths from illegal immigrants here in the USA? Where's the response?
BSE is a nuerological disorder in the same family as scrapie in sheep, CDW in elk and deer, and ALS in humans.
The incidence is at the level of a genetic disposition.
What are they trying to cover you, you ask?
Well, here’s a start:
The large meat packers have been rabid about opening the Canadian border to both cut/boxed beef (ie, processed in Canada) and live Canadian cattle, despite how many cases of BSE have been found in the Canadian herd. The Canadians have a real problem in the number of backgrounders and feedlots using banned feed.
The American herd probably has better quality and so far, has show less BSE instances than the Canadian herd.
The big packers, in their quest to keep the American consumer quiet and ignorant of the real issues with their food, is seeking to prevent:
1. Complete testing of all cattle going down the kill line.
2. Closure of our border to cattle imports, whether processed or live.
3. Prevention of someone else who implements a testing program that shows the problems in the agenda of the big packing houses.
Now, there’s a delicious irony here: Our Asian trade partners have been keeping their markets closed to US beef (processed meat, ie, the cattle are slaughtered/cut here and boxed) because we don’t have a 100% testing program. If the big packing houses implemented a 100% test program, Japan and S. Korea would re-open their markets to us in a fat hurry.
The US government has utterly and completely failed both the US consumer and the US cattle producers (ie, cow-calf operators) in allowing the concentration of cattle slaughter into six packing houses that control over 90% of the beef market. It is quickly approaching monopoly status, and no one seems interested in doing anything about it.
Good Lord. This is a serious thread discussing a serious issue. Can’t you try an hijack another one?
The feds will probably complain if food distributers start testing the chinese junk they sell too.
We do not want to panic people by letting them know what they are really eating do we? We do not want Companies to point out the shortfalls of the FDA and CDC do we?
Congress motto :Let them eat cake ( made with contaminated flour from China )
No.
ALS is a degenerative disease.
BSE is prion bad-crystallization.
The incidence is not known.
Your metaphor to teen-Alzheimer’s is not appropriate.
What do mean by “The incidence is at the level of a genetic disposition”?
Yes, the test would be redundant on most beef steers, which are slaughtered at about 1100lbs and 24+ months.
Where it would benefit us is the meat that goes into hamburger:
- gummers
- bulls with, uh, broken business equipment (I’m trying to keep this polite)
- dairy cattle that are 6+ years old and done as dairy cows.
Believe it or not, that’s quite a lot of cattle. They don’t do into boxed cuts or steaks, they’re typically ground for burger.
Doing 100% testing might not all that useful on steers, but 100% testing would re-open our export markets for US beef. If that’s what the customer wants, then that’s what we should do.
“It is quickly approaching monopoly status, and no one seems interested in doing anything about it.”
Because they pay a lot of campaign bribes and there are many “conservatives” who think monopoly is a good thing because they’re part of the cult of big business adulation.
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