Tom Philpott - Why You Should Be Worried About the California Mad Cow Case
May 4, 2012 Move along, nothing to see here.
That sums up the USDA's public reaction to news that a downed California dairy cow was discovered to have contracted bovine spongiform encephalopathy, also known as mad cow disease. The cow had an "atypical" case of BSE, one that likely doesn't come from BSE-infected feed, but rather from a genetic mutation, the agency insists [1].
Moreover, it never came close to entering the food supply, USDA stressed—it had shown up dead at a rendering facility, where it was randomly chosen for testing as part of the USDA's BSE-testing program. USDA chief Tom Vilsack, ever ready to jump to the meat industry's aid at a time of need [2],declared on CNN [3], "I'm having beef tonight for dinner. And that's no lie."
Global food and health agencies echoed the USDA's assessment, Bloomberg reports [4]: "The U.S. finding of a case of mad cow disease shows the country’s surveillance system is working, according to the United Nations' Food & Agriculture Organization and the World Organisation for Animal Health."
Let me raise two uncomfortable points about this case.
Read More:
http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2012/04/mad-cow-california
