Bush Administration Goes to Court to STOP Meatpackers from VOLUNTARILY testing for Mad Cow Disease [View All]

[Faryn Balyncd]

The Bush Administration is making clear (to those just catching on) what it means when it CLAIMS to believe in "free markets".

Not only has the administration bowed to lobbyist demands that it NOT INSTITUTE comprehensive testing for mad cow disease, but is now using federal power to protect Big Agriculture from competition from Creekstone Farms Premium Beef, a small Kansas company that wants to test all of its own products VOLUNTARILY.

Yep, for today's Republican Party, "free markets" ,makes for great rhetoric.

(For the GOP, "free markets" are dandy. . . . . just don't let some upstart entrepreneur become a threat to the wallets of the fat cats stuffing your campaign coffers. Why, if you let some little Kansas operation offer beef actually inspected for and free of mad cow disease, that might force the big boys to inspect their beef too. . . . . Or worse. Why, what if Americans were to hear about a sick cow? Holy cow, they might choose vegetables!)

US on Mad Cow: Don't Test All Cattle

Agriculture Department Fights to Keep Meatpackers From Testing All Cattle for Mad Cow


By MATT APUZZO
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON

The Bush administration said Tuesday it will fight to keep meatpackers from testing all their animals for mad cow disease.

The Agriculture Department tests less than 1 percent of slaughtered cows for the disease, which can be fatal to humans who eat tainted beef. But Kansas-based Creekstone Farms Premium Beef wants to test all of its cows.

Larger meat companies feared that move because, if Creekstone tested its meat and advertised it as safe, they might have to perform the expensive test, too.

The Agriculture Department regulates the test and argued that widespread testing could lead to a false positive that would harm the meat industry.

A federal judge ruled in March that such tests must be allowed. U.S. District Judge James Robertson noted that Creekstone sought to use the same test the government relies on and said the government didn't have the authority to restrict it.

The ruling was to take effect June 1, but the Agriculture Department said Tuesday it would appeal effectively delaying the testing until the court challenge plays out.

Mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, is linked to more than 150 human deaths worldwide, mostly in Britain.

There have been three cases of mad cow disease in the U.S. The first, in December 2003 in Washington state, was in a cow that had been imported from Canada. The second, in 2005, was in a Texas-born cow. The third was confirmed last year in an Alabama cow.


http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=3222947

It would appear that the GOP is as sincere about "free markets" as they are about the responsible fiscal policy, "small government", the "rule of law", "defending the constitution", "individual liberty", and "spreading democracy". :sarcasm:


What next from the "conservative" linguistic geniuses who have enlightened us with "unitary executive" theory?







:dem: