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Posted on 03/31/2007 8:41:03 PM PDT by A. Pole
WASHINGTON (AP) - The federal government must allow meatpackers to test their animals for mad cow disease, a federal judge ruled Thursday.
Creekstone Farms Premium Beef, a meatpacker based in Arkansas City, Kan., wants to test all of its cows for the disease, which can be fatal to humans who eat tainted beef. Larger meat companies feared that move because if Creekstone tested its meat and advertised it as safe, they could be forced to do the expensive test, too.
The Agriculture Department currently regulates the test and administers it to less than 1 percent of slaughtered cows. The department threatened Creekstone with prosecution if it tested all its animals.
U.S. District Judge James Robertson ruled that the government does not have the authority to regulate the test. Robertson put his order on hold until the government can appeal. If the government does not appeal by June 1, he said the ruling would take effect.
Mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, is linked to more than 150 human deaths worldwide, mostly in Britain.
There have been three cases of mad cow disease in the U.S. The first, in December 2003 in Washington state, was in a cow that had been imported from Canada. The second, in 2005, was in a Texas-born cow. The third was confirmed last year in an Alabama cow.
After the first case of mad cow disease heightened concern about the disease, the department increased its testing for the disease to about 1,000 tests each day.
Last July, the department cut its testing by about 90 percent. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said testing should reflect ‘‘a very, very low level'' of the disease in the United States. Neither the department nor Creekstone immediately responded to a request for comment Thursday evening.
The Agriculture Department argued that widespread testing could lead to a false positive that would harm the meat industry. Robertson said he was concerned by that possibility but noted that Creekstone sought to use the same test the government relies on.
Tests are done on brain tissue from cows, so animals must be killed before they can be tested. Because of this, Robertson rejected the government's stance that it has the authority to regulate the tests because they are used in the treatment of disease.
He said regulation of the tests might be appropriate through the Federal Trade Commission or the Commerce Department but, as the law is written now, the authority does not exist.
Bump
Well, it's a puzzle to me I guess. A company wants to make sure the meat is not diseased, and the Government won't let them test. Okkkkk
Shudder
the free market in action. One company wants to make their product more competitive by advertising 100% testing..just like "organic"..it will sell. More power to them.
The govt can't guarantee the safety of our food..but the free market can.
The government is protecting companies who don't want to test. Good job guv! Thankful there are still some sane judges.
Widespread testing for mad cow could destroy the beef industry.
As long as the Department of Agriculture can carefully select the test subjects, then public confidence in the meat supply can be maintained.
Betcha' it is the unions who are actually raising the cleaver.
The government wants to prosecute people for voluntarily testing its cows? Have they gone mad????
Libertarian ping! To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here.
thanks for posting this, it is one of the most unbelievable, but illustrative stories I've run across in a long time. :)
I am willing to bet that the cows in the slaughter house are plenty mad. No testing required.
Yeah. Tell that to Menu Foods.
You sure got THAT right!!! But I bet bobby paulsen would STILL side with the government on this one...
Based on what? The Japaneses test every cow/steer.. I haven't heard it has stopped their demand for beef.
Based upon the tinfoil theory that the government has a reason to not want the testing done - they are afraid that the results will show that the mad cow prions are more widespread than people have been told.
If there is nothing to hide, why are they trying so hard to hide it.
Actually the lesson is a little different. This is about the dispute within government (courts are government too).
One part of government wanted to side with larger, more powerful and wealthier corporations, the other took side of the smaller weaker player.
The market has to be regulated in PROPER way, in a way that the wealth does not concentrate too much (that is why we have anti-trust laws) and that weaker or poorer players are supported (this includes individual workers/trade unions and small businesses).
Once the concentration of wealth passes certain threshold, the strongest will acquire such leverage that market will stop to be free and average citizens will be disfranchised. See my tagline.
The difficulty is in finding what is the proper balance. Unfortunately we cannot have an easy ideological formula like the one used by Free Market Fundamentalists or Socialist. Real world is complex and we are doomed to improvise and to struggle with contradictions.
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