Appeals Court Rules US Can Block Mad Cow Testing 455
fahrbot-bot tips a story of mad cow disease, a private meat packer that wants to test all of its beef for the disease, and the USDA, which controls access to the test kits and just won an appeals court ruling that the government has the authority to block testing above and beyond the 1% the agency performs. Creekstone Farms Premium Beef sought to test 100% of its beef, in order to reassure its export markets, especially Japan and South Korea, that its beef is safe. Large meat packers opposed any such private testing, because they feared they would be forced into 100% testing and would have to raise prices. The appeals court ruled, 2 to 1, that under a 1913 law, test kits that are used only after an animal is killed still constitute "diagnosis" and "treatment" — this for a disease that has no treatment and is 100% fatal — and therefore fall under the USDA's authority to regulate.
Again please... (Score:4, Insightful)
What?
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
And Businesses are Greedy (Score:3, Insightful)
and it's businessmen who buy the laws. Don't insult the messenger in order to obscure the point. Just as it's whiny and greedy people - not lawyers - who are responsible for frivolous lawsuits, it's businesses that are focused on profits by all means necessary that are responsible for this result.
Money rules, who cares about health? big deal.... (Score:5, Insightful)
A private meat packer company wants to test all of it's beef products for safety and health issues and to reassure their export customers that their products are safe. Ok, that's a good thing.. right? RIGHT? and the USDA will NOT allow them. uh.. that's a bad thing.. right? BAD? UH?
Let's see, what's wrong with this picture? I mean, for pete's sakes, shouldn't we applause any company wishing to ensure their food products are 100% safe? Let's give Creekstone Farms Premium Beef credit and a hand folks!
Now, you would think that the USDA would instead do the following:
This is one of the many and many cases where money is more important than people, remember that folks! The government wants your taxes, not your health!
This is the reason... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Again please... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, here is a redo, that was badly worded.
The part I don't understand is that losing those markets means that meat producers lose more due to not testing the product than the cost of testing.
It looks like that the big producers are preventing small ones exploiting markets left wide open due to their own stubbornness. It may well be that they're afraid that people in the US and larger markets would start demanding wider testing. Maybe I should switch to chicken now.
Re:Money rules, who cares about health? big deal.. (Score:4, Insightful)
This is clearly an attempt to protect the industry from being compelled to institute 100 per cent testing for all material due to competitive pressure. Not only is this repugnant from a purely "what kind of inhuman bastard would allow people to become infected with a horrible disease" perspective, it's also in direct violation of the free market mentra these soulless creatures swear by. Truly loathsome behavior.
Re:Again please... (Score:5, Insightful)
"There is a two- to eight-year incubation period for mad cow disease. Because most cattle slaughtered in the United States are less than 24 months old, the most common mad cow disease test is unlikely to catch the disease, the appeals court noted. If the government does not control the tests, the USDA is worried about beef exporters unilaterally giving consumers false assurance."
Folks seem to neglect this minor detail that it is ultimately a good thing the USDA is taking measures to prevent mis-information and FUD from affecting beef exports.
Re:USDA (Score:5, Insightful)
Wait. You mean these "real Americans" in "the Homeland" are really just a bunch of socialists?!
Someone better tell the GOP!
Won't work. (Score:1, Insightful)
The remaining option would be to test it while in the seas (on-route), or make a detour to some other country to do testing first (read: Mexico), but I'm not 100% certain Japan or Korea is going to want to buy anything tested from those labs and not the good ol' never-mistaken 'Murican labs...
The funny part is, the testing that these producers want to do would make the meat safer for absolutely everyone, and give our economy another trade resource. This ruling is absolutely ridiculous.
Re:And Businesses are Greedy (Score:5, Insightful)
That's actually not entirely true. It's an ethically grey area, at best, especially for lawyers.
Yes, lawyers generally have the right to refuse clients based on their personal morality.
However, lawyers shouldn't exercise this right except under exceptional circumstances (or as a blanket clause- i.e., "I am not accepting any more clients".)
According to the Law Society of Upper Canada:
In short: A lawyer should not refuse to represent a client because they dislike their client's cause, because they think there might be retaliation, or because they think the client is guilty. it is generally morally suspect to refuse to represent a client because you disagree with their claim.
Government malfeasance (Score:1, Insightful)
Whatever happened to governments serving the public good?
The beef industry is being awfully shortsighted here, and the government is helping them. Sooner or later the extent of BSE contamination in US herds is going to come out, and consumer reaction will be so swift and devastating that it will likely take decades for the industry to recover. They would be better served to come clean now.
Fortunately for USAns you're in the middle of an election cycle. Make this a visible issue and force the candidates to at least pay lip service to it. Once the masses realize what's going on the demand for beef will fall and the producers themselves will demand that all herds get tested.
Oh, and no matter how tasty it is do your part by not eating beef. Just what is your brain worth anyway? (being Slashdot I know I'm going to regret asking that even rhetorically...)
Re:And Businesses are Greedy (Score:5, Insightful)
There's an upper Canada?!?
In short: A lawyer should not refuse to represent a client because they dislike their client's cause, because they think there might be retaliation, or because they think the client is guilty. it is generally morally suspect to refuse to represent a client because you disagree with their claim.
On a more serious note, there's the same rule in most if not all U.S. jurisdictions.
Re:Again please... (Score:5, Insightful)
is the "most common" mad cow disease test the one that was going to be administered?
administering a test when it is ineffective and claiming the results tell a consumer something is "fraud". we already have laws for that, the USDA doesn't have to do anything except note that it would be fraud to do that and point at the justice department should such a thing occur.
right?
Re:Again please... (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed. This is snake-oil, and from a practical point-of-view the government should put a stop to it. It would be nothing but a hundred-fold waste of test kits since, as noted, others would be pressured into doing it also.
I recognize the idealistic objection, that the government shouldn't have a say at all. This is not without merit I suppose, but it would be nice to have a relatively "shallow" pragmatic analysis, rather than having every court ruling devolve into an argument (or rather, a one-sided rantfest) about Federalism.
Note that if Creekstone (who I am sure is a paragon of decency and ethics as opposed to all those other corporations who are just in it for the money...) really wanted to do something about BSE, they could increase feed quality and living conditions e.g. by supplying free-range conditions less susceptible to epidemic. Why are they not doing this? Because it is cheaper to sell the snake-oil image of 100% testing.
Re:Again please... (Score:5, Insightful)
I was about to agree with you. Then I RTFA:
"There is a two- to eight-year incubation period for mad cow disease. Because most cattle slaughtered in the United States are less than 24 months old, the most common mad cow disease test is unlikely to catch the disease, the appeals court noted. If the government does not control the tests, the USDA is worried about beef exporters unilaterally giving consumers false assurance."
Folks seem to neglect this minor detail that it is ultimately a good thing the USDA is taking measures to prevent mis-information and FUD from affecting beef exports.
Quite the rarity, a government organization trying to prevent a feeling of false security.
P.S. Mod parent up, it's VERY relevant.
Re:Again please... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a very interesting and valid point, but what are they offering to replace the lack of testing with? Instead of spreading mis-information, they are preparing to hide behind willful ignorance should exported US Beef be found to have mad cow. "Willful ignorance of anything that might conflict with the official government line" is starting to become America's new primary reputation. The USDA isn't offering a method to ensure higher quality, they are only offering obstructions to those who are. Perhaps the company in question would be willing to wait until the cattle are three years old to ensure the testing accuracy, but they aren't being given that option. As an American, who loves his country, I really think we have reached the point as a culture and government where we deserve to fall miserably from or positions of wealth and power, for our own eventual good. Darwinism can only really be effective when there is hardship, and this country needs some serious darwinistic thinning of the herd. So I hope those beef producers relocate their headquarters and testing facilities to Mexico or Canada or Singapore, and create a lot of jobs and wealth somewhere far away, and that they send a Christmas card to the governor and congressional representatives of Kansas every year.
Re:Again please... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:USDA's argument (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, you forgot to include an outraged knee-jerk response like everyone else (who probably didn't bother to read TFA) in this conversation :-P. Seriously though, I'm surprised no one else thought this through. If proper test procedures are in place and a sufficiently large sample is taken there is no good reason for 100% coverage except to try to gain marketing leverage. If everyone was forced to perform 100% test coverage we would definitely see an increase in the cost of beef with little to no gain regarding food safety.
Re:Again please... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Folks seem to neglect this minor detail that it is ultimately a good thing the USDA is taking measures to prevent mis-information and FUD from affecting beef exports."
This is not about falsely misleading consumers that everything is safe. The FDA cannot with a straight face [well, maybe with the current administration they could) say that testing 1% of all cows and not finding MCD is better and safer for consumers than testing 100% of all cows and not finding MCD.
Quite the opposite. The FDA is worried about someone actually finding a cow with with mad cow disease. If a significant number of cases gets reported, the entire industry goes to hell. All exports from the US drop to zero. Domestic consumption (at least for domestic beef) would drop sharply, particularly if the incubation period was also reported [in that cows could be infected but still test clean].
Sure testing would be expensive, but actually getting a positive would devastate the industry.
As for cost:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9506E6DC1431F934A25750C0A9629C8B63 [nytimes.com]
Tadashi Sato, agricultural attaché at the Japanese Embassy in Washington, The Associated Press reported. ''We test all slaughtered cattle, regardless of age -- not some.''
Re:Again please... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Money rules, who cares about health? big deal.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Yet, if you test 100% of the meat, you'd effectively stop any chance of mad cow disease making its way to market.
By the way, if you were to take 300,000,000 Americans, 0.17% ends up being 510,000 people.
Re:A Rather Misrepresented Decision (Score:3, Insightful)
See also: Airport security theater
Factory farming up nightmares (Score:2, Insightful)
You do understand that mad cow disease is result from factory farming? Its fatal and non-curable.
Avoid factory farmed meat, try your local farmers... Food on a national recieved basis will always be the worst the world has to offer.
Food on the local level is the safest food available. Support your local farmers.
repeat tests eliminate false positives... (Score:3, Insightful)
So you want to test 35,000,000 cows a year? If the test is 99.999999% accurate, it'll produce 35 false positives each year. And countries are going to stop importing our beef on those false positives.
You're (rather idiotically) assuming that a positive test wouldn't be followed up with further testing, or even just a repeat test.
Re:Money rules, who cares about health? big deal.. (Score:2, Insightful)
"Just because Japan and Korea have decided to cave and let misguided public sentiment trump sound mathematical policy is no reason for the U.S. to follow suit. If anything, I would rather we spend that extra money to teach people basic statistics as part of the required educational curriculum."
It's all good an well from a statistical point of view, but do you really want to be in 0.17% that gets mad cow disease? If the public wants to pay more for safer meat why not let them, and who are you to say that the public is misguided in wanting that.
Re:This is the reason... (Score:2, Insightful)
There isn't really any reason to infer anything about the safety of modern food from its kosher status.
(because a beneficial rule of thumb from 2,000 years ago could well be ridiculously strict in the context of modern handling protocols developed from a scientific understanding of disease)
this will go to the SCOTUS (Score:3, Insightful)
First, the FDA is violating its charter. They're not allowing a company to test its product for a disease that, if present, will kill anyone who consumes it.
The FDA doesn't really have a choice in the long run. Their sole purpose for existing is to keep our food and medicines safe for human consumption. This is a counter-intuitive action.
Re:Again please... (Score:5, Insightful)
Fine, but what seems odd to me is that according to this page [consumersunion.org], the EU is using the same test on their cattle and found 1,100 cases in a five year testing period. It says that although BSE may have a lengthy incubation period, in some cases the disease can be detected in cows that were asymptomatic while alive. In short it alleges that the test is not completely worthless after all.
I'd like to believe that the government is only looking out for our best interests as citizens and that that is its only consideration but frankly its track record is not good.
It would make more sense, IMO, for the government to allow this one company to spend money, if it wishes, on this supposedly pointless test. If nothing turns up over a period of time then the company should be allowed to label its export products as "100% BSE tested according to international standards" but should not be allowed to use any such labeling on beef meant for domestic consumption. Then foreign markets will be happy but the USDA can still uphold its aim of protecting the US consumer from possible misinformation.
Re:Again please... (Score:5, Insightful)
Be careful what you write. Make no mistake in today's modern corporate profit driven world the sickest kind of tactics will be used with a complete absence of shame to ensure competitiveness whilst maintaining maximum profitability. You just have to read some of the posts, where the claim is proffered that somehow 100% testing is more disingenuous that 1% testing where both tests might miss the full development of the disease.
There are numerous examples of US companies who produce GM products putting enormous pressure on the Australian government and Australian producers to switch to GM products because the clean green method is providing Australian producers with an enormous competitive advantage with higher profitability and, rather than cleaning up their own act they simply want to take away the competitive advantage that Australian producers have.
Given the sociopathic behaviour of corporations from around the world (it doesn't seem to make much difference which country they come from) in recent history, spreading agricultural diseases around the planet to boost profitability certainly falls within the bounds of imaginable behaviour :(.
Who's mad now? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Again please... (Score:2, Insightful)
That reasoning is flawed. If a claim that they're 100% safe is untrue, then stop them from making *that claim*. The USDA has no right to stop them from testing 100% of the cows, even if the test isn't 100% accurate.
GO VEGAN (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Again please... (Score:3, Insightful)
Um, we are talking the USA aren't we, where lying for profit is a constitutional right?
Just look at the advertisements in any popular "scientific" magazine from the USA and you will see ads for magic water that has hydrogen bond angles different from normal water, and gym equipment that can make you a muscleman in just two minutes a day.
It is quite clear that there is no ASA (advertising standards agency) over there, and as for the political advertisements...