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U.S. Won't Let Company Test All Its Cattle for Mad Cow - NYT 4/10/04

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Could it be that some producers are afraid they have mad cow disease?

I guess we shouldn't be surprised at how dishonest cow killers can be...

 

ys

 

hkdd

 

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New York Times April 10, 2004

 

 

U.S. Won't Let Company Test All Its Cattle for Mad Cow

 

 

By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.

 

 

 

 

The Department of Agriculture refused yesterday to allow a

Kansas beef producer to test all of its cattle for mad cow

disease, saying such sweeping tests were not scientifically

warranted.

 

 

The producer, Creekstone Farms Premium Beef, wanted to use

recently approved rapid tests so it could resume selling

its fat-marbled black Angus beef to Japan, which banned

American beef after a cow slaughtered in Washington State

last December tested positive for mad cow. The company has

complained that the ban is costing it $40,000 a day and

forced it to lay off 50 employees.

 

 

The department's under secretary for marketing and

regulation, Bill Hawks, said in a statement yesterday that

the rapid tests, which are used in Japan and Europe, were

licensed for surveillance of animal health, while

Creekstone's use would have "implied a consumer safety

aspect that is not scientifically warranted."

 

 

Lobbying groups for cattle ranchers and slaughterhouses

applauded the decision, but consumer advocates denounced

it, saying the department was preventing Creekstone from

taking extra steps to prove its product was safe.

 

 

Under the Virus Serum Toxin Act of 1913, the department

decides where cattle can be tested and for what.

 

 

Consumer groups accused the department of bending to the

will of the beef lobby, saying producers do not want the

expense of proving that all cattle are safe or the damage

to meat sales that would result if more cases of mad cow

are found.

 

 

Creekstone said it was extremely disappointed and

frustrated that the department had taken six weeks to

decide and added that it might go to court to fight the

decision.

 

 

Since December, Japan has demanded that producers who want

to export there test each animal, as Japanese ranchers do.

The American beef industry and the Bush administration have

resisted, and negotiations have become increasingly tense.

 

 

Consumer groups were critical of the department's

decision.

 

 

"It is ironic in the extreme that an administration that's

so interested in letting industry come up with its own

solutions would come down with a heavy government hand on a

company that's being creative," said Dr. Peter Lurie,

deputy director of the health research group at Public

Citizen, a frequent food industry critic.

 

 

Dr. Lurie said, however, the Japanese demand for 100

percent testing was irrational because it included animals

younger than 20 months. "But there is no shortage of

irrational consumer demands - like cosmetic surgery or

S.U.V's - that industry is only too happy to cater to," he

said. "That's what capitalism does."

 

 

Andrew Kimbrell, director of the Center for Food Safety,

another group often critical of the industry, said: "We're

the ones who've been irrational on mad cow because of the

foot-dragging and refusals to test, our head-in-the-sand

attitude. And now that it's brought us to a crisis,

American farmers have no way of protecting their market."

 

 

A spokesman for the Agriculture Department, Ed Lloyd,

defended yesterday's decision, saying, "We're working very

diligently to re-establish our markets."

 

 

The department recently changed its testing regimen to make

a one-time effort, beginning in June, to test 201,000 cows

with symptoms of nervous disease or that are too sick or

injured to walk, and 20,000 healthy older ones. The regimen

assumes that cattle born before 1997, when a ban was

imposed on feeding bovine tissue to cattle, are most at

risk.

 

 

The president of the American Meat Institute, which

represents slaughterhouses, and the director of regulatory

affairs at the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, which

represents ranchers, praised the decision.

 

 

Gary Weber of the cattlemen's association called 100

percent testing misleading to consumers because it would

create a false impression that untested beef was not safe.

He compared it to demanding that all cars be crash tested

to prove they are safe.

 

 

Asked if American beef producers were content to give up

the $1.5 billion Japanese market, Mr. Weber said: "We're

not going to give in to their demands. If that means in the

short-to-medium term that we don't have that market, that's

the price we'll pay. But in the long run, it means there's

testing that's science based and that creates a level

playing field."

 

 

Asked if beef producers did not want to be pressured to

imitate Creekstone and pay for more tests, Mr. Weber said

it was "absolutely not about the money."

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/10/national/nationalspecial2/10COW.html?ex=10826

24482&ei=1&en=23caea2237c318d8

 

 

 

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