Here is something that really PISSES me off!

[Kali]

"Creekstone Farms to file lawsuit against USDA

Creekstone Farms has scheduled a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., this morning to announce that the company will file a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture for prohibiting Creekstone from voluntarily testing all of its cattle for bovine spongiform encephalopathy. Creekstone Farms was hit hard by the closure of the Japanese market two years ago and sought permission to test all cattle in an effort to reopen markets for its products."

(from an auto email - Drover's Journal not sure how else to credit)


When the fricking government (= huge megacorp industrial producers) prevents an individual producer from doing something like this it send all sorts of wonderful messages doesn't it? What the fuck?

Look, the small family operation has enough struggle between misinformation, ignorance, eating fads and the vagaries of weather, market and plain old luck, we don't need the fucking agencies that are supposed to help us AND the consumers pulling shit like this. aaarrrgggghhhhh

[BrklynLiberal]

1. It sure is pathetic when a small business has to fight the government

to allow itself to protect the people from something like BSE.
Gee, I cannot help but wonder just whose interests the government is really protecting? hmmmmmmmm?

[cdsilv]

2. why do they need 'permission'?

is the gov. paying for the testing? If not, what business of the FDA is it if they are testing for a DISEASE in their PRODUCT!

[efhmc]

6. News from 2 years ago about this here:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4702216/

[BrklynLiberal]

10. Thanks. Thereis a link to a story in there about the high costs of testing

and how the USDA is worried that it will affect the industry....

[Kali]

8. foil hat answer:

The big companies that operate on thin margins but huge scale don't want to implement more testing (slows down EVERYTHING) and the image of a small company doing full testing makes them look bad. (duh) who has the power? that is the answer.

[converted_democrat]

19. An even more foilish answer..

Mad Cow can take years to show up in a cow.. (I grew up on a farm..) In theory, they could be trying to keep the disease under wraps.. If they slaughter an animal before it shows symptoms, and it gets into the food chain you would never know about it until clusters of people get sick.. In one of the most recent terror bills there is a provision to keep death and birth records secret to any 3rd party wanting the info.. (At the end of this year, you won't be able to just go look up death and birth records anymore..) Many groups are upset about the provision because it would make it tough to prove or disprove cluster deaths caused by any enviromental pollutant or agent, including Mad Cow..

[Kali]

21. eh I can't quite get myself to that point

lazyness and profit motive yeah , but deliberatly covering up potential disease ... of course I can be naive! From what I have read and seen so far on BSE it is really pretty unlikely anybody is going to aquire it...and even at current testing levels, if it was very widespread they would be catching more cases.

Its definitly here, and there will be more found, I am sure - all the more reason to utilize the technology if available and if the consumer is willing then I can't imagine any excuse not to test....

The interesting new development that I read a while back was the theory that this may have actually come from humans. Fascinating speculation that bone products from India were shipped as animal feed supplement (calcium and potassium) to England and may have been contaminated with human remains - because the material was just gathered by folks on riversides and off the land...made a lot of sense to me and would explain why it was more widespread there (UK) than anywhere else.

[converted_democrat]

22. They did it to Japan.. Why wouldn't they do it to us? When the ban was

lifted in Japan, they were assured that the beef would be tested properly, proper precautions would be taken, and the bad meat would be taken out of the chain.. Not two weeks (might have been less than that) after the ban was lifted a Japanese group that was testing the meat found mad cow in one of the animals, and the ban was reinstated..

[Kali]

23. Wrong

The Japan shipment you refer to contained spinal material - that was what was not supposed to be in the shipment (it was supposed to be completely boneless) - it was NOT contaminated with BSE (which Japan has in its OWN herd, BTW)

There was actually an order placed for that material which should have been caught by our people, but that neverless originated from Japan!

[BrklynLiberal]

3. Here is their website

http://www.creekstonefarmspremiumbeef.com/news_bse.html

[lyonn]

7. Thanks for this site info

I'd pay more for meat that has consistent testing for Mad Cow! What is the USDA good for if not this sort of thing.

[efhmc]

17. That is how I feel about eating GE foods. Let us know what is in our

food and let us make the decision.

[Kali]

18. That is one of the keys.

I am not saying the factory porduced meat is unsafe (we have a record of pretty damn safe food in this country, despite some folks' impressions) but if the consumer starts demanding change, then it will happen. A lot of people simply can't afford to shop at the yuppie organic store, but if more of those who can afford it help to drive the motion the prices will come down for all.

[bloom]

4. That is outrageous.

Freedom - what freedom?

[neoblues]

5. Following their Standard Operating Procedures!

Which are:

Bush Federal Decision Making Standard Operating Procedure:

For every decision...

Determine:
(a) The Best Answer
(b) A Tolerable Answer
(c) The Worst Possible Answer
(d) An Even Worse Answer

Then, If Possible Choose Answer (d).
Failing That, Choose Answer (c)
Failing That, Place the Question/Issue on Indefinite HOLD.
Under NO Circumstances Are Answers (a) or (b) Allowed

If government employee deviates from procedure, initiate total destruction of
individual's current and future career and reputation, then override their
selection in favor of answers (d) or (c) or place decision on indefinite hold.

[ikojo]

9. What happened to the idea of allowing the

MARKETPLACE to determine what is needed. If Creekstone Farms wants to perform this test and then advertise their products as being Mad Cow Disease free then why not let them?

[fasttense]

15. Exactly ikojo. I would more than welcome a meat producer

who did 100% testing. I would buy it up in a heart beat. I hope they plan to sell in the US as well.

I would also buy chickens who are 100% tested for bird flu and fish certified to be free of mercury. I'm really getting tired of eating pork.

[Inland]

11. What about free markets and competition and consumer choice?

Basically, these guys are working to sell a safer product. If it's overkill, the consumer won't pay for the extra testing. If consumers like it, then it's all good. But the competitors would rather have the government force consumers to buy what they are making, that is, largely untested cattle. It keeps out competition, limits consumer choice, and is proof that repukes don't love capitalism, or keeping gov out of business, or Americans, but their profits.

[Pacifist Patriot]

12. Good for Creekstone Farms! Any lawyers care to speculate?

[gollygee]

13. What ever happened to not imposing regulations on business?

all that jazz.

*sigh*

[Norquist Nemesis]

14. Bingo! n/t

[InternalDialogue]

16. Exactly. The "good for small business" rhetoric

this administration touts is all talk. Smoke and mirrors to please the crowd, but machinations to loose the reins for conglomerates behind the scenes.

[AnneD]

20. I pay more now....

it's called organic food.I refuse to buy from mega companies for just such reasons. They care only for the bottom line, not the consumer. The food tastes better and I haven't had nearly the problems I had in the past.

[Peter Frank]

24. Here's the Reuters article...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Meatpacker John Stewart on Wednesday sued the U.S. government to provide it with cattle testing kits so his Kansas company can prove to customers, especially in mad cow-leery Japan, that its beef is safe.

Stewart's firm, Creekstone Farms Premium Beef LLC, wants to test all its slaughter cattle for mad cow disease. Its suit in U.S. district court in Washington, DC, would force the Agriculture Department to give it access to test kits for the brain-wasting disease.

The suit was applauded by consumer groups. But USDA, which convinced Japan to drop its own universal testing program, opposes private testing of cattle. Mad cow incubates for years, USDA says, and "is not detected in young animals," the bulk of the 35 million head of U.S. cattle slaughtered for meat each year.<snip>

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2006-03-23T191733Z_01_N23301432_RTRUKOC_0_US-MADCOW-USA.xml&archived=False

[Kali]

25. thanks for finding that

and now having read it, I may actually have altered my stance a bit.

There is a double edge here - if a private entity is allowed to do their own inspections (tests) how do you determine qualification? I mean the possibility exists that everybody could demand to do their own testing - then who do you believe?

There still has to be SOME oversight, in my opinion - although I have certainly learned that most of our so-called food safety regulations, at least in terms of meat production, actually perform the function of keeping the small guy out of the picture and not necessarily making meat any safer for the consumer.

And if what the USDA claims has any basis in truth, full testing may be a huge waste of money (undetectable in young animals anyway and statistical relationships of the numbers tested vs the number of positives - which I am certainly no expert at, yet we have tested something over half a million AT RISK animals - older, strange behaivior etc - and have only found two or three in three years??? - is increasing testing with the added cost going to help find more? I honestly don't know the answer.)