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Anonymous
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This is a headline article from the Kyodo News off Yahoo Asia....
Thursday April 6, 8:57 PM
N.Y. Times urges USDA to test every cow that goes to slaughter
(Kyodo) _ The U.S. Department of Agriculture should test every cow that goes to slaughter, doing away with its current policy of testing only high-risk cattle, the New York Times commented in an editorial published Thursday.
"The cost is not prohibitive. Fear is the problem," said the Times. "The current testing program for mad cow disease is intended to produce, at best, a snapshot of the likelihood of the disease."
"The fear is that broad testing may reveal a higher rate of infection and destroy consumer confidence, with a devastating impact on the cattle market. Which leaves us where we are now: relying on what we don't know to make us feel safe," the newspaper said.
In March, Creekstone Farms Premium Beef LLC, a Kansas-based beef company, sued the USDA for not allowing it to use tests for mad cow disease, formally called bovine spongiform encephalopathy, on all of the cattle it slaughters.
The USDA's testing program on BSE tests only high-risk cattle --those that die on the farm, can't walk or are obviously sick. Under the policy, the department tests about 1 percent of the 35 million cattle that are slaughtered in the U.S. every year.
The USDA argues that 100 percent testing would not guarantee food safety because mad cow disease can be hard to detect in younger cattle -- the very cows that a premium beef company like Creekstone is most likely to slaughter.
"To us, this sounds like nonsense -- as if we were more likely to be safe by following a testing plan based on statistical modeling of the beef supply than by actually testing all the cattle," the Times said.
"Why would the U.S.D.A. stop a cattle company from voluntarily meeting a higher standard than the one required by law? The very idea sounds counterintuitive. But then so does the agency's rationale," the paper said.
Thursday April 6, 8:57 PM
N.Y. Times urges USDA to test every cow that goes to slaughter
(Kyodo) _ The U.S. Department of Agriculture should test every cow that goes to slaughter, doing away with its current policy of testing only high-risk cattle, the New York Times commented in an editorial published Thursday.
"The cost is not prohibitive. Fear is the problem," said the Times. "The current testing program for mad cow disease is intended to produce, at best, a snapshot of the likelihood of the disease."
"The fear is that broad testing may reveal a higher rate of infection and destroy consumer confidence, with a devastating impact on the cattle market. Which leaves us where we are now: relying on what we don't know to make us feel safe," the newspaper said.
In March, Creekstone Farms Premium Beef LLC, a Kansas-based beef company, sued the USDA for not allowing it to use tests for mad cow disease, formally called bovine spongiform encephalopathy, on all of the cattle it slaughters.
The USDA's testing program on BSE tests only high-risk cattle --those that die on the farm, can't walk or are obviously sick. Under the policy, the department tests about 1 percent of the 35 million cattle that are slaughtered in the U.S. every year.
The USDA argues that 100 percent testing would not guarantee food safety because mad cow disease can be hard to detect in younger cattle -- the very cows that a premium beef company like Creekstone is most likely to slaughter.
"To us, this sounds like nonsense -- as if we were more likely to be safe by following a testing plan based on statistical modeling of the beef supply than by actually testing all the cattle," the Times said.
"Why would the U.S.D.A. stop a cattle company from voluntarily meeting a higher standard than the one required by law? The very idea sounds counterintuitive. But then so does the agency's rationale," the paper said.
