USDA Threatening Meatpacker If They Test For Mad Cow

Carrie

Unbelievable. My jaw nearly dropped when I heard about this on the radio this morning. A Kansas meatpacking company wants to do 100% testing to assure their Japanese customers that their beef doesn't contain mad cow disease, and the USDA is threatening them if they proceed with the testing.

TommyJefferson

That is some wild stuff.

Confused

The other night Stephen Cobert did a spoof with this exact premise; "more testing is bad".

Seeing it in real life is sureal.
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gary_malcolm

Don't kid yourself.

Go ahead, drive the backroads of Iowa and count the 'Dropper' vans... Don't know what I'm talking about? These are businesses that go pick up sick and dying livestock that can no longer stand up on it's own volition. These animals are then ground up and fed back into the feed stock for fattening and fast growth.

Some rules are in place to prevent cows from consuming cows... but inter-species feeding is perfectly legal. Prions, however, do NOT respect specist limitations. Heck, we're just worried about that BOVINE form that takes 4-10 years of infection to show in tests.... ever met a 6 year old steer? Me neither.

BTW take a guess at the number of pig and chicken 'droppers'.

I'm just saying there's a real reason this testing is restricted and it probably has a lot to do with those Alzheimers care facilities that seem to have popped up right next to every other McDonalds.

Just saying.

Best,

G$
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Gary Malcolm

US Empire

There is no alternative source for our gluttony. Power down or die.

coyote

Falconoffury · Expert Joined: May 25, 2004 Posts: 1379

It sounds like the government is desperate to keep some big secret. I can't believe how ridiculous this is. Usually the government is complaining about not enough testing.

I don't see how the government can win a criminal case. What can the meatpacker be charged with? Trying to make sure their product is safe?
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"If humans don't control their numbers, nature will." -Pimentel
"There is not enough trash to go around for everyone," said Banrel, one of the participants in the cattle massacre.
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gg3

This is one of those cases that should have anyone with a libertarian streak in a flaming uproar. Here's a private entity responding to a market by engaging in private measures to improve the safety of a product, and the govt is trying to prosecute 'em for it.

The thing to do is countersue the govt (or wait for them to try filing criminal prosecution) and then file a discovery motion demanding all data the govt have on prion diseases and anything else relevant to the case, including the influence of the "dropper" industry.

Then in all probablity the govt will back down.

But if they don't, keep pushing and make a scandal.

Further proof that the present administration is anything but conservative.

gary_malcolm

So I did a bit of internet research last night on Prions, BSE, CJD and Alzheimer's.

Turns out that the cause of Alzheimer's is still a great mystery to medicine despite the billions of $$$ of research. It does fit neatly into a family of degenerative neural conditions that have appeared out of almost nowhere in the last 100 years. The ravages of these diseases comes from the 'calcification' and 'protein clumping' on nerves tissues

A few researchers are pointing to environmental factors. Minerals (manganese) and chemicals (organo-phospates in insecticides) are known to deform certain naturally occuring proteins (in this case prions) causing them to become mini-factories replicating themselves into these harmful neural deposits. One researcher in particular was plotting cases of CJD geographically to geological deposits of Manganese and Manganese industrial facilities. Another was showing that the use of insecticide in the skin of cattle to avoid bottle fly infection correllated to BSE in spinal tissues.

This is all very interesting stuff that makes me want to empty my cleaning products into the garbage and go join a hippie commune.

G$
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Gary Malcolm

US Empire

There is no alternative source for our gluttony. Power down or die.

backstop

Gary - Sooner the better !

But if and when you make the jump, be sure to do a lot of visiting first, as there's a huge diversity of what passes for a hippy these days . . .

WRT the patently counter-productive govt. suppression of public knowledge of commercial livestock disease-rates,

this looks like really good news for those who raise livestock organically !

Premium sale prices could go a long way to offsetting the economies of scale scam the agribusinessmen run.

regards,

Backstop
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"The best of conservation . . . is written not with a pen but with an axe."
(from "A Sand County Almanac" by Aldo Leopold, 1948.

Falconoffury · Expert Joined: May 25, 2004 Posts: 1379

I was raised to believe that a private food company should be testing at a minimum standard enforced by the government. Anything beyond the call of duty should be given a round of applause. This case just isn't logical.
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"If humans don't control their numbers, nature will." -Pimentel
"There is not enough trash to go around for everyone," said Banrel, one of the participants in the cattle massacre.
"George W. Bush loves poor people. He keeps making more of them." -unkn

Shannymara

Itch · Heavy Crude Joined: Jun 30, 2004 Posts: 338

I'd like to add that there are different ways of testing for made cow. The standard, government/food industry approved method is usually more expensive. Usually this consists of cutting out a piece of the animals bain and seeing if it has the mutated prion.

There are other, more effective, efficient cheaper methods, but the government/food industry will not allow that for the same reason that they would criminilize this guy: if this guy starts testing, then everyone will start testing in order to reach foreign markets. If everyone starts testing every cow, then they'll realize just how many cows are infected with the mutant prion. Foreigners will ban American beef. Domestic guinea pigs, consumers, or whatever you want to call them, just might stop eating food that assures a horrible death, and the meat industry as it is will fail, as will all ancilliary jobs associated with it.

This would be great, of course, but the government -- and it doesn't matter who the Fark is in control -- will attempt to squelch this. The government and food industry are inseperable, and would love to continue trashing everything while they get more money.

hunter · Tar Sands Joined: Sep 22, 2005 Posts: 24

as long as this particlar meat packing plant is covering the costs of the extra testing and it's not being dumped on the taxpayers I really don't see what the issue is.

unless the government is afraid of the BSE cases that are found by testing all cows....

Falconoffury · Expert Joined: May 25, 2004 Posts: 1379

The keeping of secrets for purposes of maintaining economic well-being is immoral. The pharmaceutical and food industries are among the biggest criminals in this way. The USDA, FTC, and FDA are all on the side of the corporations instead of the truth.

I think secrets may be necessary for national security, but economic security should not be in the same category as national security.
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"If humans don't control their numbers, nature will." -Pimentel
"There is not enough trash to go around for everyone," said Banrel, one of the participants in the cattle massacre.
"George W. Bush loves poor people. He keeps making more of them." -unkn

highlander

Interesting bit of news.
Malcolm...it's interesting that they are finding a link between manganese and Alzheimers. Lets see, they knew lead was linked to developmental disabilities, so they replaced lead antiknock agents with manganese. Who knows, maybe in another decade or two they will replace manganese with some essential element like selenium or lithium
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Highlander 2007

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