Dusty Britches
Well-known member
Goodlatte levels harsh words at BSE testing critics
Agriculture Online
6/27/2005, 4:54 PM CDT
There were harsh words for critics of USDA's BSE testing scheme today from the Chair of the House Agriculture Committee. "I would discourage the grandstanding that has led some people to make inaccurate and groundless assertions about the threat of mad cow disease and the ability of USDA to guarantee the safety of the nation's food supply," Chairman Bob Goodlatte said in a statement.
"Last Friday's announcement of a second confirmed case of mad cow disease in two years demonstrates that the safeguards and firewalls that were put in place years ago are operating well. The animal in question was born before the 1997 ban on ruminant-to-ruminant feeding, and never entered the human or animal food chain," he said.
Goodlatte also said he supports Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns' decision to modify the confirmatory procedure in USDA's Enhanced Surveillance Program. USDA will now confirm inconclusive results from positive BSE tests using both the IHC and Western Blot tests.
On Friday, reaction to the news of the second BSE-positive cow in the US from the Center for Science in the Public Interest was sharply critical.
Caroline Smith DeWaal, Food Safety Director for the organization, noted in a statement, "Happily, the risk of contracting the human form of mad cow disease is miniscule." But, she also had this to say:
"Since the United States does not have a mandatory animal tracking system, USDA's strategy is basically to cross its fingers and hope that beef from a BSE-infected animal doesn't end up on Americans' dinner plates. Call it a faith-based mad cow policy."
She also noted that in May, Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns delayed national animal identification until 2009.
"Canada was able to move from a voluntary to a mandatory animal tracking system in one year. There's no reason why the United States can't implement a system just as good as Canada's just as quickly," she said.
Goodlatte, however, says the bottom line is this: "The United States has the safest and best food supply in the world and that is not going to change."
This line gets me -
Didn't Canada have a voluntary tracking system in place years before the mandatory government system? We don't even have a voluntary system for the government to hi-jack. :roll:
Agriculture Online
6/27/2005, 4:54 PM CDT
There were harsh words for critics of USDA's BSE testing scheme today from the Chair of the House Agriculture Committee. "I would discourage the grandstanding that has led some people to make inaccurate and groundless assertions about the threat of mad cow disease and the ability of USDA to guarantee the safety of the nation's food supply," Chairman Bob Goodlatte said in a statement.
"Last Friday's announcement of a second confirmed case of mad cow disease in two years demonstrates that the safeguards and firewalls that were put in place years ago are operating well. The animal in question was born before the 1997 ban on ruminant-to-ruminant feeding, and never entered the human or animal food chain," he said.
Goodlatte also said he supports Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns' decision to modify the confirmatory procedure in USDA's Enhanced Surveillance Program. USDA will now confirm inconclusive results from positive BSE tests using both the IHC and Western Blot tests.
On Friday, reaction to the news of the second BSE-positive cow in the US from the Center for Science in the Public Interest was sharply critical.
Caroline Smith DeWaal, Food Safety Director for the organization, noted in a statement, "Happily, the risk of contracting the human form of mad cow disease is miniscule." But, she also had this to say:
"Since the United States does not have a mandatory animal tracking system, USDA's strategy is basically to cross its fingers and hope that beef from a BSE-infected animal doesn't end up on Americans' dinner plates. Call it a faith-based mad cow policy."
She also noted that in May, Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns delayed national animal identification until 2009.
"Canada was able to move from a voluntary to a mandatory animal tracking system in one year. There's no reason why the United States can't implement a system just as good as Canada's just as quickly," she said.
Goodlatte, however, says the bottom line is this: "The United States has the safest and best food supply in the world and that is not going to change."
This line gets me -
Didn't Canada have a voluntary tracking system in place years before the mandatory government system? We don't even have a voluntary system for the government to hi-jack. :roll:
