Fwd from SANET (Sustainable Agriculture Network Discussion Group). See "Veneman Announces Additional Protection Measures To Guard Against BSE". - Keith
Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2003 00:14:52 -0500 From: chris reid <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Comments on USDA press release To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] THE USDA press release is interesting. I'm tempted to be encouraged by it, even relieved that the right noises seem to be coming out of Washington. Again, with this apparently encouraging news, I remind myself to "keep your eye on the ball." This is a press release, and we need to see how it actually plays out, and examine it carefully to see if the key changes we need to see are actually happening here, and what the pattern of changes implies for the meat industry and for consumers. "There's many a slip twixt the cup and the lip," and so we must not let our optimism run away with us (grin). What has not disappeared is the atmosphere in Washington typified by the very recent defeat of legislation in Congress intended to make our meat supply safer (related to downer cattle), and the strength of the dairy and cattle industry lobbies that contributed to said defeat. Therefore, I would make the interpretation that even in the face of this press release, the bent of these industries is in profits and the thinking is not humane thinking, it is green eyeshade thinking about risk levels and profit levels, and numbers, numbers, numbers. So I will be quite watchful and mindful that press releases are not the same as the actions that are ultimately carried out, that this administration has a history of positioning its anti-progress actions in progressive prose, and our citizens are believed to have an attention span of about one millisecond. Again, if a tree falls in the forest and no one hears does it make a sound? If the federal government does not live up to the apparent game plan laid out in a press release but citizens look no farther than the press release, will citizens remember the press release or the actions? One hopes that the Japanese can hold their ground and be a factor in causing actual changes to occur. I think there are a lot of hardworking people at USDA who really want to see this matter handled competently and correctly, so I don't mean to insult them or paint them with a broad brush. I guess what I am saying is that the current BSE situation exists within a context in which profits and influence are frequently play out as more important than human health and welfare. Based on the track record of the administration so far and the documented results of previous attempts to protect the meat/food chain, I consider it worthwhile to read carefully and distinguish between real and apparent changes, and keep an eye on actual enforcement and actions to see if technicalities and end runs water down any apparent progress. Quick notes on the press release: Regardless of the USDA's self-characterization of its efforts as aggressive, the US Surveillance system is not characterized as aggressive by people in the know, the words "HUMAN food chain" suggest that downer meat will continue to be used for other animals' consumption, ALL existing and legal cannibalistic feeding practices are NOT banned in these rules, the inadequate BSE surveillance program is described as "will be continued" so no improvements there, "visual pre-mortem inspection" of cattle headed for slaughter is described but no comprehensive post mortem testing using advanced, more sensitive testing (as demanded by the Japanese government) is described - not clear if the visual inspection is anything new. In general, this is a press release that does not fully and completely address the believed cause of BSE, cannibalistic feeding practices. It occurs to me that it would not be possible for USDA to broaden the ban on cannibalistic feed practices without calling the public's attention to their continued existence in the US today. MISSING BUT DESIRABLE: I would want to see stepped up enforcement of the 1997 feed ban, banning of use of downer cattle in ANY food, not just human food, and appropriate destruction of all downer cattle as if they had BSE; a new ban on the use of AMY cattle remains in non-ruminant feed (currently cattle can be used in chicken feed, and the chicken remains can then be turned around and used in cattle feed), the banning of the use of cow blood protein for weaning calves. We have to remember that "human food" is a defined concept, and it means food labeled or intended for human consumption. There are people who are too poor to buy this food and eat food labeled for animal consumption. The placement of a label on food as human or nonhuman is to permit the use and sale of otherwise unfit matter. It in no way guarantees that humans would not eat the food or get BSE from eating it; nor does it guarantee that we could not see some cross-species TSE infectivity happening between our pet dogs and cats and ourselves. It probably just absolves liability. In some ways, one interpretation that could be made is that the new regulations may be written in such a way as to DELIBERATELY NOT DISCOVER existing BSE in the USA, at least at present time. Witness: No improved quantity or quality of actual testing. We're going to ban all downer cows from the human food supply, but we're not going to TEST THEM ALL and thus we can pretend we don't have a problem - no test, then no positive test results. In other words, if we wanted to prevent BSE and desired to identify all existing cases and their sources/get an accurate handle on the current status of BSE in the US herd, we would do the comprehensive cannibalistic feed ban, comprehensive downer ban, and test all slaughtered animals, and find a way to immediately begin tracking sources of beef - tag ears and log in animals using existing bar code technology, for example. This is not rocket science, is it? If Fed Ex can track packages, we can track cattle, at least as far as who brought them to market, for starters. If we start there, anybody selling cows for slaughter who doesn't want to be completely liable, will real quick start keeping track of where they bought what cow and when. I am puzzling over the possibility that what we have instead in this press release is "don't ask don't tell" in the testing area -- allowing asymptomatic BSE infected cattle to go "undiscovered" and pass out of a cattleman's possession and into the food supply "out of sight, out of mind" till the incubation period results in illness, long after the 2004 presidential election. Smart cattlemen could clean up their feed act and take advantage of this nice window of opportunity to get rid of the evidence without having their herd destroyed. And since the cattle ID system is "in development," we can't identify where it came from -- how convenient, no lawsuits. Hopefully, the thinking may go, the downers going into dog food (still allowing cattlemen SOME recompense for their sick cattle) will make our pets take up much of the risk of the unidentified diseased animals. It's a little like deciding to ban a pesticide but pushing the date out into the future so manufacturers aren't hurt by having to get rid of product -- they can sell it all and pass on the risk to the consumer. I could say more but I'll keep it short. What I've said here is not "the truth", I'm not attached to it and there's lots of room for other opinions and information on this subject. Chris Reid Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2003 07:41:30 -0500 From: chris reid <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: government to adopt more rapid diagnostic tests To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] My criticism that the government was not adopting newer testing methods was apparently ill placed. See the following info: A faster test to detect mad cow disease in all injured or sick cattle that arrive at slaughter plants, delivering test results within 48 hours, is to be adopted by the government, the USDA said on Tuesday. Anticipating an increase in mad cow testing, the agency said it will begin using more rapid diagnostic tests. It currently uses what it calls the "gold standard" of mad cow tests, which can take up to five days to complete. source: http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=4060704 Biofuels at Journey to Forever http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html List messages are archived at the Info-Archive at NNYTech: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. Yahoo! Groups Links To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/biofuels-biz/ To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
