Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Here's what happens when the agencies created to protect us are instead used to protect the short term profits of the industry they are supposed to regulate. Would you believe the USDA, which regulates the safety of the entire agricultural industry, actually tried to tell one beef producer that they can't test all of the cattle they send to the market for mad cow disease? That's right, they tried to prevent a company from testing for the safety of the beef they sell. And a Federal judge just told the USDA they don't have that authority.
Creekstone Farms Premium Beef, a meatpacker based in Arkansas City, Kan., wants to test all of its cows for the disease, which can be fatal to humans who eat tainted beef. Larger meat companies feared that move because if Creekstone tested its meat and advertised it as safe, they could be forced to do the expensive test, too.
Now, let's not overreact to this; the USDA performs spot testing on about 1% of the beef that hits the market and our food supply, particularly on this issue, has been incredibly safe. Of the millions and millions of cattle that go to market every year, a grand total of 2 American cows have tested positive for mad cow disease, as opposed to a couple hundred British and Canadian cows. But if a company wants to play it safer and make sure, why in the world should the government tell them they can't?
This seems to be a rather odd example of rent-seeking, which is a real problem when you've got government agencies who think their job is to protect the industries they're supposed to regulate. Of course, the fact that those industries give huge amounts of money to the parties in power, who in turn often appoint former executives from the largest players in those industries to run the regulatory agencies, is purely coincidental. And in case you think this is unique to Republicans, I suggest you take a look at all of the favors done for Tyson Foods, Archer Daniels Midland and other huge agribusiness interests when Clinton was in office. Numerous regulatory rules were changed on their behalf to protect their profits.
Comments
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Posted by: Gretchen | April 4, 2007 9:26 AM
It's actually worse than typical rent seeking. Creekstone Farms wants to do something that actually adds perceived value to their product that does no harm to consumers. Presumably they're going to charge more for it, since the assumption is that the assurance that the bit of meat that you're actually buying has been tested for mad cow is going to be worth something. That's substantial market interference by the USDA at zero benefit to the consumer. Rent seekers typically try to keep out competitors, this is an active attempt to stifle actual innovation in the market, not just the addition of new competitors.
I'm surprised that the USDA thought that they had any say in the matter at all. It would be like the FDA stepping in and saying that a cosmetics company couldn't advertise that their cosmetics weren't tested on animals, or the FCC telling a TV network that they have too much "family friendly" programming on the air and need to cut it back. I wonder how the USDA will react to beef producers offering "contains no cloned animal" advertisements about their meat, since its a similar sort of argument.
Posted by: NonyNony | April 4, 2007 10:14 AM
It's not just beef either- Monsanto, maker of the rBST growth hormone, wants the FTC to crack down on dairies that advertise their milk as coming from cows not given rBST. They say that this falsely implies that the milk from supplemented cows is potentially unhealthy.
http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2007/04/04/monsanto_hits_dairy_ads_on_hormones/
Posted by: Scott | April 4, 2007 10:37 AM
Just a clarification/correction: I don't believe Canada has had hundreds of cases of mad cow. I'd wager it is less then a dozen. Don't lump us in with Britain.
Posted by: Kevin | April 4, 2007 12:44 PM
>that their cosmetics weren't tested on animals,
Why would I want to use cosmetics that weren't tested on animals? They might not be safe.
Unless you meant that they test on humans instead. Which would be more accurate testing, and therefore make their cosmetics more likely to be safe.
Posted by: Martin Grant | April 4, 2007 1:55 PM
Kevin is correct. I think there are like 9 confirmed cases in Canada, and more than 185,000 cases in Britain.
It's rather like the time the guy said he and Michael Jordan combined for 74 points in a game. Turned out it was 2 by him and 72 by Michael.
Posted by: Dave S. | April 4, 2007 3:33 PM
There have actually only been 10 Canadian born cases of BSE (one diagnosed in Washington State and 9 in Canada). The UK has had over 180,000 cases, but the numbers have dropped steadily since their peak year of 37,000 in 1992. They were down to only 114 cases in 2006.
All the numbers of cases world-wide can be found at http://www.oie.int/eng/info/en_esbmonde.htm.
But I think the more important points related to this story are: 1) BSE cannot be detected in young animals, so the animals the Creekstone would be killing at around 17 to 22 months of age would all test negative. So selling that beef as "tested BSE free" would be kind of like selling water that is "transfat free".
and 2) the BSE infective agent does not exist in the "beef" that people eat. It only exists in certain parts of the cow like the brain and spinal cord which are not allowed to be incorporated in human food. So if the infective agent doesn't exist in human food, doing the testing is again like saying water is tested for the absence of transfat.
Posted by: John | April 4, 2007 3:38 PM
John, if all that's true and the whole story, then why have I had to disqualify myself from being a blood donor (per the Red Cross) for having been stationed in Europe (two USAF tours) between 1980 and 1987 because we were fed beef procured from Great Britain?
Posted by: twincats | April 4, 2007 4:09 PM
I think there's a distinction here. Monsanto isn't exactly the finest example of a corporate citizen, but I think they have a legitimate gripe. In the case of mad cow testing, mad cow disease is 100% bad for you and any increase in testing can legitimately be considered good. On the other hand, singling out the rBST hormone, which to my knowledge has not been shown to be a problem for people, implies that there's something dangerous about it.
I'm aware of the animal welfare concerns, but I would think that the only fair way to make the claim that being rBST is good is to explain on the packaging why it's good. Otherwise, I think it's pretty clear that the rBST labeling issue was basically just a cynical attempt to scare people away from competitors' products by throwing jargon at them and implying that it's a major issue that they should already know about.
Posted by: Troublesome Frog | April 4, 2007 4:42 PM
I'd assume they'd be testing the CNS tissue from the slaughtered cattle. I think the main risk for transmission to humans is through inadvertent inclusion of CNS tissue in meat products. It can spread among humans through blood transfusions as well. CDI has been used to identify BSE in cows at 21 and 23 months, but testing generally doesn't work reliably for young cattle, but some older cattle are used for human consumption too. Testing animals at normal slaughter-age probaby isn't worth the effort unless the particular test has been validated for detecting BSE in that age group.
Posted by: MattXIV | April 4, 2007 5:13 PM
I have already begun phasing beef out of my diet. Stories like this only reinforce that commitment. It just another in a list of growing reasons not to eat beef.
Posted by: attotheobscure | April 4, 2007 7:29 PM
Ed basically hit the crux of the matter when he states the USDA-FSIS(Food Safety and Inspection Service) agency believes their job of protecting the industry supersedes the mandate that it is to protect the consumer. I worked for three loooong years as a federal veterinarian in a meat packing plant. It's all politics with the meat industry yanking the FSIS strings.
Creekstone Farms was being proactive and trying to assure it's customer, a Japanese buyer, that it's cattle is free of BSE. The USDA doesn't want to go down that road so it attempts to bully this firm to protect the Cargills, Tysons, the other few big firms which will not okay BSE testing on all US cattle.
Food Safety in this country is not about science, it is about politics. If you want to play it safe, buy from a local farmer and/or butcher that you trust.
Posted by: nelson | April 5, 2007 12:32 PM