From today's New York Times wire:
U.S refuses to OK mad cow tests San Francisco Chronicle 04/10/04
The Department of Agriculture on Friday refused to allow a Kansas beef producer to test all its cattle for mad cow disease, saying such sweeping tests were "not scientifically warranted."
Yes, the company wanted to test all its cattle for BSE (mad cow disease). But our public servants in the federal Department of Agriculture refused to allow them to do it.
From Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose, Bushwhacked: Life in George W. Bush's America (2003), p. 128:
If you must eat while the R's control the White House, both houses of Congress, and the judiciary, you might want to consider becoming a vegetarian about now.
4 comments:
Your essay overlooks several important points.
First, while the beef provider is, indeed, willing to pay the costs of testing, which is believed to be up to $20 per head, they fully intend to pass this along to the customer. According to NPR, Creekstone Vice President Kevin Pence concedes that it's purely a marketing move.
Second, all of this company's cattle is younger than 30 months old. This is significant because only cattle older than 30 months are considered at risk for mad cow disease in the first place.
Third, the reliability of the type of testing Creekstone wishes to use -- tests that are used in Europe and Japan -- has been called into question. Last year, according to Jerome Nietfeld, a veterinarian at the Kansas State University's Veterinary Diagnostic Lab, these "rapid" tests initially came back with 13 BSE-positive results, but only four of them were later confirmed as accurate.
Finally, if we pause briefly from bashing Republicans, we might recall that the Virus Serum Toxin Act, the law at the center of this debate, happens to have been passed on March 4, 1913, as DEMOCRAT Woodrow Wilson took office.
Well, I guess "It's Woodrow Wilson's fault" is a refreshing change from, "It's Bill Clinton's fault."
But so what if the company intends to charge higher prices? That's one area where "free market" economics does work. They're taking on the added risk of higher prices and/or lower profits, so why should the Dept. of Agriculture block them from doing it?
Actually, I believe they were doing the testing so they could sell to the Japanese market. Not everyone in the world trusts Republican beef regulation as much as the Woodrow Wilson bashers do. - Bruce
I'm not out to "blame" any Democrat for the law itself...I was just pointing out that it's not completely fair to put all of the blame on Republicans, either.
As for the Department of Agriculture blocking this company from taking on the "added risk of higher prices and/or lower profits," they are doing so because they don't want to force EVERY OTHER company to HAVE to take the same step. Japan is requiring 100% of beef to be tested by a method that is apparently not completely reliable, anyway. The Dept. of Agriculture is working to try to get Japan to reduce its rather lofty standards of testing so that all beef providers will have the chance to restore this "lost" market without having to cut their profit margin.
I saw a similar article a couple days ago in the LA Times. They used the headline "Entrepreneurship Gets Slaughtered"
From the article:
"It was a case study in free-market meatpacking entrepreneurship. That is, until the Bush administration's Department of Agriculture blocked the enterprise, apparently at the behest of Creekstone's competitors."
They invested $500,000 in building labs and hiring chemists, but were unable to get enough testing kits from the Ag Dept. This just seems wrong to me! Why in the world would our govt tell a company that they woyuld not be allowed to make their product MORE safe than standards require. (This is a rhetorical question, of course, I know the bushie's are in the pocket of big businesses who don't want to compete fairly!)
See: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-turley20apr20,1,7902590.story?coll=l
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