Meat imports allowed weeks after mad- cow ban

[UpInArms]

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2001933937_cow20.html

WASHINGTON — The Agriculture Department allowed U.S. meatpackers to resume imports of ground and other "processed" beef from Canada last September, just weeks after it publicly reaffirmed its ban on importing those products because mad-cow disease had been found in Canadian cattle.

In the subsequent six months, a total of 33 million pounds of Canadian processed beef flowed to U.S. consumers under a series of undisclosed permits the USDA issued to the meatpackers, permits that remained in effect until a federal judge intervened in April.

The imports — which involved ground beef, cubed beef and some types of sausage — were allowed despite the August 2003 announcement by Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman that she was extending an earlier ban on many types of Canadian beef.

Ever since the USDA briefly shut down all imports of Canadian beef in May 2003 after the mad-cow discovery, the USDA has been under great pressure from Canada and from large U.S. meatpackers with plants across the border to loosen the restrictions, which hurt profits in both countries.

Mad-cow disease was found last May in a cow in Alberta and then in another Canadian-born cow that was slaughtered in Washington state in December.

...more...

[Snazzy]

1. This has got to be criminal

I was following this story then, and read the USDA releases. Everything they put out strongly implied (came right out and said, I thought) that the border was shut.

The entire response in the US to mad cow amazes me. Not in the media. Under most American's radar. No one seems to care.

If we were in the UK, we'd be doing a mass slaughter. AFAIK, our exports remain shut down pretty much everywhere, and that gets next to no press.

[Native]

2. Gee, why am I not surprised? n/t