Bullard said that while USDA claims to be taking a world leadership position by formulating a protection plan that it says incorporates the most recently discovered science on BSE, USDA actually has rejected internationally known and established science-based standards in favor of optimistic assumptions based instead on wishful thinking.
USDA's Final Rule, in the following ways, compromises science acknowledged throughout the rest of the world:
1. It adopts the Specified Risk Materials (SRM) removal practices recommended by the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) and practiced in the United Kingdom (UK) and the European Union (EU) for years except that USDA only includes some high-risk tissues in its SRM removal plan (fewer tissues than included in the standard risk-reduction practices in the UK and the EU). USDA&'s Final Rule does not begin removal of SRMs at the age where OIE, the UK, and the EU consider it necessary. USDA's Final Rule requires SRM removal only from cattle over 30 months of age, while European countries require removal of SRMs in all cattle over 12 months of age. OIE recommends SRM removal from cattle over 6 months of age for countries with the same disease characteristics as Canada.
2. It adopts a BSE testing/surveillance program as recommended by OIE and as practiced by the UK and the EU for years, except that USDA's Final Rule fails to target cattle that enter the human food chain, as recommended by OIE and as practiced by the UK and the EU.
3. It adopts part of a meat-and-bone meal (MBM) feed ban, as has been recommended by OIE and as practiced by the UK and the EU for years, except that USDA fails to require Canada to have had its feed ban in place for the length of time recommended by OIE. USDA's Final Rule also fails to include the same products as the feed bans practiced by the UK and the EU, both of which ban blood and poultry litter from cattle feed.
All these rules benefit the big meat packers and put producers and consumers in jeopardy.
“The BSE standards being incorporated by USDA are inferior to international standards established by OIE, and far below the science-based practices of countries that have successfully reduced the incidence of BSE,” Bullard said. “Canada does not meet the definition of a minimal-risk country, based on international guidelines, and this is why 33 countries still ban Canadian beef. It’s not clear why USDA should force U.S. consumers to be exposed to risks that other countries protect their citizens from.”
I find the answer simple. The USDA is controlled by the big meat packers, not our elected officials, and is supporting the agenda they want. If that agenda infects Americans with BSE infected cows, too bad.
Rantings of a deranged mind or words of warning coming from the distance. I know what I think.
All the familiar horrors we
Associate with others
Are coming fast along our way:
The wind is warning in our tree
And morning papers still betray
The shrieking of the mothers.
Philip Larkin
You never cease to amaze me, Sam.