Some meatpacking companies want to test all of their cattle for Mad Cow disease. Bush tells judge to stop them.
posted by
Wally
7:13 AM
How much does Georgie care about the American (or other) people? Enough to try to stop meatpackers from doing additional testing (above and beyond federal regulations) to ensure that they're not putting mad cow disease beef on the market. The logic is so twisted, even those of us who have spent years studying Bush's (ahem) reasoning have a hard time following it.
Time Magazine tries to explain:The Bush administration on Friday urged a federal appeals court to stop meatpackers from testing all their animals for mad cow disease, but a skeptical judge questioned whether the government has that authority.
The government seeks to reverse a lower court ruling that allowed Arkansas City, Kan.-based Creekstone Farms Premium Beef to conduct more comprehensive testing to satisfy demand from overseas customers in Japan and elsewhere.
Less than 1 percent of slaughtered cows are currently tested for the disease under Agriculture Department guidelines. The agency argues that more widespread testing does not guarantee food safety and could result in a false positive that scares consumers. Wouldn't want to scare consumers now. They might stop shopping. That could lower corporate profit margins, and we can't have that, even at the expense of human lives and health.
The additional, voluntary testing could also result in "real" positives that inform consumers. Perhaps that's another reason Bush is blocking it - he and Cheney have an irrational fear of allowing "we the people" to have any information about anything. (If you doubt this, consider the fact that they still refuse to release even the names of the people that were on Cheney's "energy task force" back in 2001). The more obvious reason, of course, is this:Larger meatpackers have opposed Creekstone's push to allow wider testing out of fear that consumer pressure would force them to begin testing all animals too. Once again, Bush comes to the rescue of the multi-national humongo-corporations in their struggle to squash the little guy. He wouldn't any of that "healthy competition" to enter his "free market" system and affect his big money CEO pals.
Another day, another small step on the road to changing our government from "Of, by, and for the people" to "screw the people".
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