"The B.S. of Bush's Mad Cow Policies" by Jim Hightower

"THE B.S. OF BUSH'S MAD COW POLICIES"
Jim Hightower

The only thing madder than Mad Cow disease is our government's Mad Cow policies.

Take the case of Creekstone Farms Premium Beef, a small, enterprising company in Kansas that produces top quality beef. To assure both U.S. and foreign buyers that its product is free of Mad Cow disease, Creekstone said that it would exceed USDAs minimal testing standards and pay to have every single one of its cows privately tested.

Great! Who could be against more testing and such innovative entrepreneurship?

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, for one. The big beef lobby for two.

In another case of Bushite bushwa, USDA notified Creekstone that it does not allow private testing, even by certified labs (this from an administration that's privatizing everything from its wars to your water supply). Why? The official rationale is that only the government can assure food safety. But how can testing 100 percent of cows be less safe than USDA's program that inspects less than 1 percent?

The real reason for USDA's intransigence is that the Big Boys of the beef slaughtering world – Tyson, the National Cattleman's Beef Association, etc.–– don't want to do 100-percent testing themselves, and they want no competition from anyone who does. Their claim is that Creekstone's testing would "mislead" us consumers, for we might think that 100-percent testing produces a safer product.

Aside from the fact that more testing does assure more safety, Creekstone is not even making such a claim. It's only claiming that, indeed, it tests 100 percent of its cows. Then its up to us consumers to decide in the marketplace which beef we prefer. But the Bushites and the big beef lobbyists refuse to allow such consumer choice, declaring that Creekstone cannot advertise that every ounce of it's beef is fully tested.

What a pile of B.S. To help bring sanity to Washington's Mad Cow policies, call the U.S.D.A. comment office: 202-720-5627.

"Beef firm faces perplexing resistance to mad cow tests," USA Today, March 26, 2004.

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