Tuesday, April 3, 2007

How now mad cow?

A federal judge has ruled that a Kansas meatpacker should be allowed to test all of the meat it processes for mad cow disease. Our very own United States Department of Agriculture had threatened to prosecute Creekstone Farms Premium Beef if they proceeded with plans to test all their beef for mad cow.

The USDA currently tests fewer than 1% of cows for the disease, and threatened Creekstone because larger meatpackers felt that Creekstone would gain a competitive advantage by being able to advertise safe meat.

Do you see conflicts of interests here? The USDA is more interested in protecting the profits of the meatpacking industry than in protecting consumers from a fatal disease, and the industry itself is concerned with good profits at the expense of good products.

This is another horrid example of the weakening of our regulatory agencies as they become, more and more, shills for the industries on which they are supposed to "ride herd".To them, the word "scruple" is a contraction for "screw people".

http://thegallopingbeaver.blogspot.com/2007/03/before-you-eat-that-usda-prime-steak_30.html

PLEASE work to get these corporatist hacks out of power. Our lives are being endangered in so many ways by this administrations policies that it's mind-boggling.

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