Court: US can block mad cow testing - don't you love it

[ensho]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/29/AR2007032901795.html


The Bush administration can prohibit meat packers from testing their animals for mad cow disease, a federal appeals court said Friday.

The dispute pits the Agriculture Department, which tests about 1 percent of cows for the potentially deadly disease, against a Kansas meat packer that wants to test all its animals.

Larger meat packers opposed such testing. If Creekstone Farms Premium Beef began advertising that its cows have all been tested, other companies fear they too will have to conduct the expensive tests.

-the following is not true-
The Bush administration says the low level of testing reflects the rareness of the disease. Mad cow disease has been linked to more than 150 human deaths worldwide, mostly in Great Britain. Only three cases have been reported in the U.S., all involving cows, not humans.
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-snip-
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[paparush]

1. No Cow Left Behind. The Clean Cows Initiave. Defending the Herdland.

:puke:

[Salviati]

2. Gotta love the free market that republicans are always crowing about..

Oh wait...

[KewlKat]

Our family grows it's own beef

and the processor charges us for the test. The processor says they have to test, so I'm confused why the feds aren't? I'm happy to pay the fee an know that at least it's been tested and hopefully safe?

[Vanje]

7. Are you in the US?

I think your processor may be ripping you off.
Ask him where he's having the tests done?
Ask him what test he's using.

There arent many facilities in the US that are set up to test for prion diseases.
I mean damn few!

That may change in future, as a simpler blood test is being developed, but for now its not easy to get testing done at all.

Congrats on growing your own meat, by the way.

[KewlKat]

3. dup...nt

[bananas]

4. This is so screwed up

unfortunately the dlc thinks its a good idea.

[flvegan]

5. Even if I wasn't a veg, I still don't think I'd eat red meat of any kind.

Probably a chicken and seafood kind of eater due to anxiety about what my government isn't telling me.

[spinbaby]

8. We eat red meat but we're careful

We buy local grass-fed beef. We know the source, we know where the cattle have been grazing, it's safe. We don't eat feedlot beef.

[Vanje]

6. Yet, every farmed elk killed in the state of Idaho

MUST be checked for CWD (chronic wasting disease, the cervid equivalent of Mad Cow.)

[rcsl1998]

9. Let's See If I've Got This Right...

The less you test, the less you find - the less you find, the less need there is to test. Is that about it?