Mad Cow Policy

Here’s a positive sign:

The Agriculture Department tests fewer than 1 percent of slaughtered cows for the disease, which can be fatal to humans who eat tainted beef. A beef producer in the western state of Kansas, Creekstone Farms Premium Beef, wants to test all of its cows.

Excellent. One meat producer wants to step up to the challenge and test all of its cows. The only problem? The other meatpackers don’t want to follow suit.

Well, that’s too bad. We’ll just buy Creekstone beef from now on.

Not so fast! The US Dept. of Agriculture is suing Creekstone to stop their diabolical plan to ensure the safety of their beef. That’s right. Our own government is using regulations to actually prevent more Mad Cow testing, despite one company stepping up to the plate.

U.S. government fights to keep meatpackers from testing all slaughtered cattle for mad cow

Now, maybe I’ve simply eaten too much beef, but usn’t the USDA supposed to be enforcing government rules designed to protect the public? Instead, it seems to be acting as the industry’s internal enforcement arm, allowing the bigger meatpackers to sic the big bad government on smaller and more able competitors when they don’t like the results.

What could possibly cause this behavior, other than a dose of Mad Cow disease? Could it be… bribery?

That’s what we used to call it when industries gave money to government to get their own special regulation, lax enforcement, or government muscle against healthy (in this case very healthy) competition.

So where is the investigation?

Perhaps we need to being testing 100% of USDA officials for Corrupt Pig Disease?

In this administration, it’s highly contagious.