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Appeals Court Rules US Can Block Mad Cow Testing
fahrbot-bot tips a story of mad cow disease, a private meat packer that wants to test all of its beef for the disease, and the USDA, which controls access to the test kits and just won an appeals court ruling that the government has the authority to block testing above and beyond the 1% the agency performs. Creekstone Farms Premium Beef sought to test 100% of its beef, in order to reassure its export markets, especially Japan and South Korea, that its beef is safe. Large meat packers opposed any such private testing, because they feared they would be forced into 100% testing and would have to raise prices. The appeals court ruled, 2 to 1, that under a 1913 law, test kits that are used only after an animal is killed still constitute "diagnosis" and "treatment" — this for a disease that has no treatment and is 100% fatal — and therefore fall under the USDA's authority to regulate.
What?
and it's businessmen who buy the laws. Don't insult the messenger in order to obscure the point. Just as it's whiny and greedy people - not lawyers - who are responsible for frivolous lawsuits, it's businesses that are focused on profits by all means necessary that are responsible for this result.
A private meat packer company wants to test all of it's beef products for safety and health issues and to reassure their export customers that their products are safe. Ok, that's a good thing.. right? RIGHT? and the USDA will NOT allow them. uh.. that's a bad thing.. right? BAD? UH?
Let's see, what's wrong with this picture? I mean, for pete's sakes, shouldn't we applause any company wishing to ensure their food products are 100% safe? Let's give Creekstone Farms Premium Beef credit and a hand folks!
Now, you would think that the USDA would instead do the following:
This is one of the many and many cases where money is more important than people, remember that folks! The government wants your taxes, not your health!
That I don't eat beef and, especially, pork. While the conditions in packing plants and slaughterhouses may be 'monitored', they are simply not 100% (or as close as humanly possible).
Sig this!
This is clearly an attempt to protect the industry from being compelled to institute 100 per cent testing for all material due to competitive pressure. Not only is this repugnant from a purely "what kind of inhuman bastard would allow people to become infected with a horrible disease" perspective, it's also in direct violation of the free market mentra these soulless creatures swear by. Truly loathsome behavior.
Wait. You mean these "real Americans" in "the Homeland" are really just a bunch of socialists?!
Someone better tell the GOP!
Good plan, if it were legal to ship it to Japan in the first place, which it isn't, because it hasn't been tested for BSE.
The remaining option would be to test it while in the seas (on-route), or make a detour to some other country to do testing first (read: Mexico), but I'm not 100% certain Japan or Korea is going to want to buy anything tested from those labs and not the good ol' never-mistaken 'Murican labs...
The funny part is, the testing that these producers want to do would make the meat safer for absolutely everyone, and give our economy another trade resource. This ruling is absolutely ridiculous.
Whatever happened to governments serving the public good?
The beef industry is being awfully shortsighted here, and the government is helping them. Sooner or later the extent of BSE contamination in US herds is going to come out, and consumer reaction will be so swift and devastating that it will likely take decades for the industry to recover. They would be better served to come clean now.
Fortunately for USAns you're in the middle of an election cycle. Make this a visible issue and force the candidates to at least pay lip service to it. Once the masses realize what's going on the demand for beef will fall and the producers themselves will demand that all herds get tested.
Oh, and no matter how tasty it is do your part by not eating beef. Just what is your brain worth anyway? (being Slashdot I know I'm going to regret asking that even rhetorically...)
Yes, you forgot to include an outraged knee-jerk response like everyone else (who probably didn't bother to read TFA) in this conversation :-P. Seriously though, I'm surprised no one else thought this through. If proper test procedures are in place and a sufficiently large sample is taken there is no good reason for 100% coverage except to try to gain marketing leverage. If everyone was forced to perform 100% test coverage we would definitely see an increase in the cost of beef with little to no gain regarding food safety.
God, schmod. I want my monkey man!
Yet, if you test 100% of the meat, you'd effectively stop any chance of mad cow disease making its way to market.
By the way, if you were to take 300,000,000 Americans, 0.17% ends up being 510,000 people.
See also: Airport security theater
You do understand that mad cow disease is result from factory farming? Its fatal and non-curable.
Avoid factory farmed meat, try your local farmers... Food on a national recieved basis will always be the worst the world has to offer.
Food on the local level is the safest food available. Support your local farmers.
So you want to test 35,000,000 cows a year? If the test is 99.999999% accurate, it'll produce 35 false positives each year. And countries are going to stop importing our beef on those false positives.
You're (rather idiotically) assuming that a positive test wouldn't be followed up with further testing, or even just a repeat test.
Please help metamoderate.
"Just because Japan and Korea have decided to cave and let misguided public sentiment trump sound mathematical policy is no reason for the U.S. to follow suit. If anything, I would rather we spend that extra money to teach people basic statistics as part of the required educational curriculum."
It's all good an well from a statistical point of view, but do you really want to be in 0.17% that gets mad cow disease? If the public wants to pay more for safer meat why not let them, and who are you to say that the public is misguided in wanting that.
First, the FDA is violating its charter. They're not allowing a company to test its product for a disease that, if present, will kill anyone who consumes it.
The FDA doesn't really have a choice in the long run. Their sole purpose for existing is to keep our food and medicines safe for human consumption. This is a counter-intuitive action.
They're using their grammar skills there.
Perhaps this is proof the Mad Cow Disease has spread into the judiciary.
Yet Another reason to go vegan. Why you ask? Because this is another example of how animal exploitation industries use misinformation to give consumers warm fuzzes. The difference is this time the judicial inquiry, and that's only because the FDA was involved.