US Court upholds ban on mad-cow testing.

[SirNitram]

Link

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal appeals court says the government can prohibit meat packers from testing their animals for mad cow disease.

Because the Agriculture Department tests only a small percentage of cows for the deadly disease, Kansas meatpacker Creekstone Farms Premium Beef wants to test all of its cows. The government says it can't.

Larger meat companies worry that if Creekstone is allowed to perform the test and advertise its meat as safe, they could be forced to do the expensive test, too.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Friday overturned a lower court ruling that would have cleared the way for the testing. The appeals court said restricting the test is within the scope of the government's authority.

What happens when you politicize so many layers of government the appointments wind up being party-line parrots? Right...

[Durandal]

So a private company wants to spend its own money to make sure its beef is disease-free ... and the government says it can't because it might grant them a competitive advantage? Is this a joke? In an age where people want corporate responsibility, we're preventing corporations from embracing it?

[Sea Skimmer]

The cost of mad cow testing would raise the average price of beef by about 8-10 cents per pound, not something I’d object too very much, but that does add up a great deal. Also, a number of tests kits have proven defective over the years, which is one big reason why the beef industry is so fearful of doing it. One false test can ruin companies, while we still have no real reason to think mad cow disease is present in the America beef supply… because we never fed our cows other cows.

The current test program, while absurdly limited, 1 in 1700, does specifically target cows which appear sick, especially downers that can’t stand. It was downer cattle like that which is most likely to be infected, and it was the grinding of infected downer cattle into cattle feed that caused the British outbreak. Even then, an estimated half million cattle with the infection entered the food supply… and infected less then 200 people in the entire world.

In short, I’m not very concerned about it testing 100% or not, I’m much more concerned about low sanitary standards in general in slaughterhouses and supermarket meat rooms, and I’d rather see cost increases to improve those situations first. This ban though, thats stupid as shit.

[Admiral Valdemar]

What you need is a politician to prove it's free of disease and wholesome... by feeding his little daughter a beefburger.

[Duckie]

What you need is a politician to prove it's free of disease and wholesome... by feeding his little daughter a beefburger.

Don't count on that, wasn't there a guy who put his hands in a chemical to prove it was perfectly safe to the public and workers in particular, and then after he did so and left for another speaker was rushed across back stage and was decontaminated?

I forget what that chemical was.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Don't count on that, wasn't there a guy who put his hands in a chemical to prove it was perfectly safe to the public and workers in particular, and then after he did so and left for another speaker was rushed across back stage and was decontaminated?

I forget what that chemical was.

Wouldn't surprise me. But what I said was in reference to John Gummer MP trying to prove a point about British beef by getting his kid to eat the burger (which she flat out refused).

I was talking to my boss the other day about the water companies fucking over the people in the country adjacent to ours, where 100,000 people got £25 for having a month without any drinking water (never mind that token wouldn't cover the bottled water for a week). He had a similar anal raping where he lived a while ago, and some water board head honcho appeared and saw a load of angry customers; my boss' father holding a glass of tea coloured water with tiny worms and debris in. The guy said it was perfectly drinkable.

Funny thing was, when offered to have a delicious gulp, he refused. It's always fun to point out hypocrisy.

[Lord MJ]

This is one of those few cases where I would actually advocate for this company to simply run the tests anyway. It's really the only thing that can be done when all checks and balances fail in the legal system, which has clearly happened here.

[Archaic`]

What you need is a politician to prove it's free of disease and wholesome... by feeding his little daughter a beefburger.

Don't count on that, wasn't there a guy who put his hands in a chemical to prove it was perfectly safe to the public and workers in particular, and then after he did so and left for another speaker was rushed across back stage and was decontaminated?

I forget what that chemical was.

Something in cigarettes, back when they were still trying to deny that smoking can cause damage to one's health.

[Sea Skimmer]

Don't count on that, wasn't there a guy who put his hands in a chemical to prove it was perfectly safe to the public and workers in particular, and then after he did so and left for another speaker was rushed across back stage and was decontaminated?

I forget what that chemical was.

Demonstrations for the media like that have happened with dozens of different chemicals from the 1950s onward, and in most cases the tests are fully legitimate, like the spokesmen who drank a pint of agent orange.

[Alan Bolte]

While it wouldn't surprise me in the least that government would act to protect the bottom lines of major corporations at the expense of public health, this particular case may be blown out of proportion. At the very least, there seems to be a good excuse.

Because most cattle for slaughter in the United States go to market before they are twenty-four months old, it is unlikely that the rapid BSE test will detect the disease. Id. In light of the rapid BSE test's limited efficacy, USDA believes that the routine use of the test on "clinically normal young cattle is not practical[], offers no food safety value," is "likely [to] produce false negative results" and is "meaningful and reliable . . . when used for surveillance purposes on . . . animals exhibiting some type of clinical abnormality that could be consistent with BSE" (e.g., cattle that cannot stand or walk, show signs of neurological disorders or die from an unknown cause).

Emphasis mine.
Creekstone v USDA (PDF)

[DPDarkPrimus]

Don't count on that, wasn't there a guy who put his hands in a chemical to prove it was perfectly safe to the public and workers in particular, and then after he did so and left for another speaker was rushed across back stage and was decontaminated?

I forget what that chemical was.

Wouldn't surprise me. But what I said was in reference to John Gummer MP trying to prove a point about British beef by getting his kid to eat the burger (which she flat out refused).

Whereas a panel of doctors in South Korea recently ate servings of US beef to dissuade fears of mad cow disease. I saw a picture on BBC's website but can't seem to find it.

[Gil Hamilton]

Demonstrations for the media like that have happened with dozens of different chemicals from the 1950s onward, and in most cases the tests are fully legitimate, like the spokesmen who drank a pint of agent orange.

That doesn't seem to be a valid test to me. Was it a pure sample of the substance or did it contain the dioxins that managed to make all those veterans sick?

[Stark]

All kinds of tests have false-positive rates; that's why you reduce that by multiple testing over time.

[Akhlut]

What you need is a politician to prove it's free of disease and wholesome... by feeding his little daughter a beefburger.

Don't count on that, wasn't there a guy who put his hands in a chemical to prove it was perfectly safe to the public and workers in particular, and then after he did so and left for another speaker was rushed across back stage and was decontaminated?

I forget what that chemical was.

I'm fairly certain that happened with tetraethyl lead.