In case you’re one of the five people in the U.S. who doesn’t read the news, we finally have our first confirmed case of Mad Cow Disease (more properly known as Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy or BSE) in the United States. In response the USDA has changed the rules for the treatment of cattle that are to be part of the food supply. The one I really love is this, direct from the press release on the USDA’s web site:
Product Holding.
USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service inspectors will no longer mark cattle tested for BSE as “inspected and passed” until confirmation is received that the animals have, in fact, tested negative for BSE. This new policy will be in the form of an interpretive rule that will be published in the Federal Register.
OK…wait a minute…unless I’m misreading this, which I’m not because I’ve read it several times to weed out the Da-Da factor, prior to this recent uproar USDA inspectors have been marking cattle as having passed the test for BSE before they had the test results back. And this was deemed “safe” and “OK” ?!?!?!?
And just think how bad off we’d all be if the government weren’t so diligent about protecting our health and welfare.