Mad Cow Mistakes

Seems that two of the major assumptions the Bush Administration is peddling about the Mad Cow disease found in a Washington State cow that was slaughtered are both wrong.

First, it has been determined (at least tentatively) that the animal was imported as a calf from Canada, making the point that international rules to prevent transfer of diseased livestock do not work. Second, while the U.S. Agriculture Department was adamant that the carcass was not delivered into the human food suppply, the fact is that the infected cow's meat reached retailers in eight Western states.

Japan, the EU and lots of other countries have banned US beef imports, for the same reason Canadian beef was banned last year and British beef before that. The US does not help its case by lying. And making pronoucements based on incomplete or inaccurate information that no infected meat was sold to humans is about as close to lying as one can come. That the truth only came out a week later just compounds the problem.

UPDATE: The government did a major about-frace yesterday, leading to this disturbing conclusion. "It seems almost inevitable that some part of the cow was eaten." It was killed on Dec. 9, and ground up with about 20 others to make a batch of 10,000 pounds of hamburger that was shipped to groceries in eight states and Guam, although 80 percent went to Oregon and Washington, the Agriculture Department says.

 Posted by glenn