When it comes to testing U.S. cattle for mad cow disease, the USDA
doesn't really want to mandate any sort of testing at all. Even with
countries like Japan banning all US beef due to our country's lack of
mandatory testing requirements, the USDA continues to resist creating
new regulations that would raise the safety of US beef to the much
higher standard of Japan and the UK.
The USDA
wants to exempt young cattle from any mad cow disease testing
whatsoever, and they think the cutoff age should be 30 months. But mad
cow disease has been found in cattle as young as 21 months, and in
Europe, three cows under 30 months of age have been diagnosed with mad
cow disease in the last three years. But the USDA insists that mad cow
disease simply cannot exist in cattle younger than 30 months due to its
incubation time.
I have an alternate explanation: the USDA is simply
protecting the cattle industry from anything that might increase costs.
The health of the public be damned: the United States doesn't want to
test cows because it is afraid that testing might reveal the mad cow
disease problem to be even more widespread than previously feared. And
that, of course, would harm the sales of red meat even further. Put
another way, the USDA is now following a "don't ask, don't tell" policy
for mad cow disease.
About the author: Mike Adams is a consumer health advocate and award-winning journalist with a mission to teach personal and planetary health to the public He has authored and published thousands of articles, interviews, consumers guides, and books on topics like health and the environment, reaching millions of readers with information that is saving lives and improving personal health around the world. Adams is an independent journalist with strong ethics who does not get paid to write articles about any product or company. In mid 2010, Adams produced NaturalNews.TV, a natural health video sharing website offering user-generated videos on nutrition, green living, fitness and more. He's also a noted technology pioneer and founded a software company in 1993 that developed the HTML email newsletter software currently powering the NaturalNews subscriptions. Adams volunteers his time to serve as the executive director of the Consumer Wellness Center, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, and enjoys outdoor activities, nature photography, Pilates and martial arts training.
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Friday, January 30, 2004
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