Life-Saving Testing Banned – Mad Cow Screening “Inconsistent” with U.S.D.A. Agenda
Written by Tiffany Sanders
Monday, 01 September 2008 04:19
Back in 2006, a meatpacking company in Kansas had a great idea: it would test every cow for bovine spongiform encephalitis (BSE), commonly known as “mad cow disease”. It was a great idea because the U.S. Department of Agriculture (U.S.D.A.) tests only a very small percentage of cows for the disease, which can be fatal to humans who eat beef from infected cattle.
Creekstone Farms Premium Beef was willing to undertake the testing of every cow at its own expense. In fact, the company built a laboratory and sent its employees to France for training with the company whose test kits it intended to use. But then Creekstone ran into a problem: test kits for BSE could be sold only to laboratories approved by the U.S.D.A., and the U.S.D.A. said no to the testing.
In fact, although the division later sought to explain away the statement, a senior veterinarian with the U.S.D.A.’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) told a reporter that Creekstone could face criminal liability if it tested its animals for BSE.
Creekstone sued for the right to test its own cattle for the deadly disease, and won in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. U.S. District Court Judge James Robertson—the same judge who authored the District Court opinion in the groundbreaking Guantanamo case, Hamdam v. Rumsfeld, and resigned from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in apparent protest over President Bush’s decision to use wiretaps to gather information about U.S. citizens without first seeking court approval—ruled that the U.S.D.A. had exceeded its authority under the 1913 Virus-Serum-Toxin Act.
Robertson’s opinion made good sense, since that statute was intended to protect against substandard veterinary care, and the animals in question were being tested after they were dead. Creekstone did not propose to replace or interfere with U.S.D.A. testing of its beef. Rather, as a purely supplemental measure, it proposed to perform additional testing to ensure the safety of its beef.
The concern, rather, seemed to be that Creekstone might use the additional testing as a marketing point—it might, in short tell people that all of its beef had been tested. That, the U.S.D.A said, was “inconsistent with USDA's mandate to ensure effective, scientifically sound testing for significant animal diseases and maintain domestic and international confidence in U.S. cattle and beef products.” In other words, it might make the companies that didn’t choose to test every animal look bad, and consumers and other countries to which U.S. beef is exported might notice that Creekstone beef was safer than other U.S. beef.
Unfortunately, this past week the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia bought into that argument, and Creekstone (along with any other meatpacker that might get some crazy idea about making sure that its meat was safe for human consumption) is legally prohibited from testing its cattle.
So we might be at risk for “mad cow disease” and see our brains waste away, but at least we don’t have to worry about those big meat packing companies feeling pressured or anything, right?
[via: Rational Outrage]
