Bush: Mad Cow Disease Is Your Friend

[jeffg]

Add this little gem to Bush's wonderful legacy:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/29/AR2007032901795.html?hpid=sec-health

 

[maytagbear]

Why am I not surprised?

This began years ago, under the Reagan administration, when funds for United States Department of Agriculture inspection funds and staffs were slashed. Yes, Clinton could have restored funding, but was discouraged by the meatpacking industry. However, this is no laughing matter.

How bad does it have to get? How many cases of CJD have to happen here in the States? Going vegetarian is not much safer, either...what with Salmonella and Listeria and, and, and.....

We might as well be devolving to the time BEFORE the Pure Food and Drug Act....

Grow your own? Sure, if you have the land. Not everyone does.

Right now, I am mad, as in angry.

"Mooooo."

Lawrence/Maytagbear

 

[jeffg]

I'm not one for hysteria, but the Nova episode on Mad Cow Disease is one of the most frightening things I've seen in the past several years. It's not a virus, or a bacteria. You can't kill it, because it's not alive in the first place. You can incinerate it, dump the ashes in your garden and it'll *still* kill everything it touches.

It's something right out of a Stephen King novel.

 

[danemodsandy]

This Is What Frosts Me....

"Larger meat packers opposed such testing. If Creekstone Farms Premium Beef began advertising that its cows have all been tested, other companies fear they too will have to conduct the expensive tests."

Well, well, well. Well, well. Wellwellwellwellwell. What have we here?

I do believe the Republicans have made a great big huge ginormous deal about the marketplace being the best way to decide social policy, right?

And now that someone is trying to introduce a marketplace factor that actually does people some good, they're trying to kill it.

All I can say is that I'm ready for January 20th. I think.

 

[alanlendaro]

This is an outrage but to be expected I guess

Looks like that nation that is supposed to be in favor of Free Market Capitalism wants to prevent a private business from conducting its business as it sees fit. This would be fine, if the company was engaged in practices that resulted in unsafe food in the supply chain. However, the only effect this testing would have would be to ensure that the very slim chance that MCD entered the human food supply is yet further reduced. How can this possibly be a bad thing?

Creekstone doesn't appear to be asking for public funds for this testing. If Creekstone does it, can advertise it and charge a premium for the perceived extra benefit of its product, why should they be stopped? That sounds like good old fashioned American Capitalism at its best - beat your competitors to the market with a superior product and make a good profit!

The truly sad part of this is that it will take a back seat in the minds of many voters who think it's more important to beat the same old tired social (i.e. religious) issues to death.

Gay Marriage and abortion rights are the perfect smoke screen for the administration to do what it wishes with other things that are far more important. Quite frankly, as an open and out gay man in a committed relationship, I just wish the whole issue of Gay Marriage would just go away (at least until we deal with some of the other more pressing issues of our time). There won't be much point of getting married (or having babies) if we keep gutting the nation and planet as we have been doing.

 

[alanlendaro]

Oh, one more thought on this

For those of you who have read Ayn Rand's epic novel, "Atlas Shrugged," doesn't this sound al lot like what the government did/tried to do to prevent Henry Reardon from making Reardon Metal? I had recently re-read this book and was talking about it to a new acquaintance at at party. His response was to the effect that it was a good time to be reviewing it. I had no idea how prophetic he was being.

 

[dalangdon]

As I recall, Alan, in "Atlas Shrugged", the government is preventing the use of the metal because no one will take the initiative to declare it safe - everyone who would make a decision or take a stand is disappearing (or something like that. It's been a long time since I've read any of her books. They were a bit too romance novel-y for my taste. Plus, her characters tend to drone on for pages at a time ;-)

In the case of the USDA and FDA, they did a admirable job of protecting the public for generations. They were formed because of the public outrage at the horrible way food was manufactured back in the late 1900's. (See Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" - another diatribe-filled book - for a good insight into how these factories were operated)

The current problems we have with food inspection and food safety have more to do with chronic underfunding of the agencies, and big corporations (who Rand maintained would save us) interfering with the process so that their bottom line is preserved, at the expense of public safety and health.

 

[sudsman]

Just what I think

Bush IS a MAD COW!

 

[jeffg]

If you really want your blood to boil, listen to the last hour of this speech from Dr. Robert Bussard. You'll discover the primary function of our Dept. of Energy is to protect oil cartels from "threats" such as advancements in fusion energy.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1996321846673788606&hl=en

 

[bajaespuma]

As I've said a million times before, Bush supporters deserve every little thing he does.

 

[kenwashesmonday]

Yeah, but we don't.

Ken