Do not make the mistake of thinking that because my conclusion is the same as another person's that my reasoning is the same
Disclaimer: You can have me steak when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.
That disclaimed, The Washington Post, among others, tells enough about how cows become meat to make you wonder.
The ban announced by Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman was the answer, and it represented a repudiation of years of industry efforts to limit government intervention in slaughterhouse operations and in shaping the nation's response to the threat of mad cow disease.
"We're going to support the actions of the secretary," said a subdued Chandler Keys, vice president of government affairs of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, acknowledging that producers had not anticipated such a broad government response. "We're going to have to manage through it as an industry. We think the industry will rise to the challenge."
For years, the politically potent and well-financed cattle and meatpacking industries have held sway in the debate over the practice of slaughtering and marketing non-ambulatory, or downer, cattle. They repeatedly blocked efforts by urban Democrats and a handful of moderate Republicans to end the practice -- which provides producers with millions of dollars of profits each year but also represents the biggest potential source of contaminated meat.
An estimated 190,000 sick or injured cattle are shipped to slaughterhouses annually, and only about 5 percent of them are tested for serious illness such as mad cow disease.[P6: emphasis added] Just last month, Republican congressional leaders deleted from a pending spending bill a measure banning the slaughter of downer cattle.
I would like to know who was the sicko that first said, "Hey…I can grind up that dead cow and feed it to my other cows instead of just throwing the heffa away!"
Posted by P6 at December 31, 2003 07:35 AM | Trackback URL: http://www.prometheus6.org/mt/mt-tb.cgi/2695