Mad Cow Disease now in the U.S.

[Nick]

Frozen french fries for export have been hit as well.

[Bux]

Frozen french fries for export have been hit as well.

Half a million dollars worth of frozen prefried French fries boggles the mind, not to mention the tongue. Sixty 40,000 pound containers of frozen potato products is no small potatoes.

[ExtraMSG]

The problem with putting the responsibility on government's shoulders is shown, ironically, in this new article by Schlosser but also in his book (the paperback has extra chapters, btw): it usually fails at it.

One of the reasons libertarians like myself are against giving government this responsibility is that it's not very good at carrying it out. Many of us are pragmatists and believe that government should only do what it must because what it does usually isn't done very well. Maybe I watched too many episodes of MASH growing up.

If people took this responsibility on themselves, they wouldn't just randomly trust whatever is in the supermarket because the government has supposedly given it their okay. A company that wasn't open and honest would be shunned by responsible consumers and would be hurt in the marketplace.

I just find it quite ironic that people like Schlosser point out over and over how terrible the government is, both in our country and abroad, at handling these things and then their big idea for fixing the problem is more government. Again, read FFN and note who makes the most effective changes in how food is handled. It's McD's and Jack in the Box.

I'll admit that I'm less against the government regulation than the mentality that looks to government first to fix the problem. I just think they often go hand in hand and feed off each other.

Edited January 2, 2004 by ExtraMSG (log)

[ExtraMSG]

Frozen french fries for export have been hit as well.

Damn, send those fries my way. I bet they're way better than what you can normally get.

[Pan]

ExtraMSG, aren't you aware of what things were like before there was any government regulation, or at least none to speak of? There were exposes written about that, too. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair comes to mind. I think the difference between libertarians who want to abolish all regulations and people who believe some regulations are necessary is that we don't say that because government is imperfect, it should be abolished. But most libertarians aren't that extreme, and I think you aren't. I think you probably believe that the government should run the justice system, the prisons and the armed forces. Why? The justice and prison systems are screwed up in all sorts of ways, and no country's armed forces have ever been perfect. So why not disband the goverment, and leave everything up to private enterprise? Because, in the end, I suppose that you probably don't think that private armies and vigilante justice would be as good as the current necessarily imperfect national armed forces and very flawed justice system. And those of us who believe certain minimum standards of food safety need to be maintained by government regulations are simply convinced that private companies, if left to their own devices, would in many cases cover things up, cut corners, and if necessary take the money and run. Look at Enron as an example of what happens when there's no regulation. That doesn't prove how bad government is at regulation, but rather how bad things become when deregulation is pushed through inadvisably. Sometimes, deregulation is helpful, and an excess of paperwork and red tape is a bad thing. But having no limitations on pollution, no oversight of meat-packing plants, no maximum hours, no requirements for sinks in restaurant kitchens, no workplace safety regulations - these are bad things. It used to be like that, about 80 years ago. The lack of regulations led to the disaster in the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, when "a total of 146 women died in less than fifteen minutes" because they were locked into the sewing room. In recent years, very similar disasters have occurred in Shenzhen, China and Bangkok, because those countries either lack the types of regulations pushed through after that inferno in the U.S. or do not enforce them for fear of creating more expenses for businesses. I'll end the rant here, and I hope it goes without saying that I respect your contributions to this site very much. I just wish you would consider some real-world facts that make things more complicated than "all regulations are bad and the world would be better if all regulations were abolished."

[jsolomon]

Anna, correct me if I'm wrong, but I understand that ranchers get all kinds of benefits from the government, including the right to graze their cattle for free or almost nothing on huge tracts of public land run by the Bureau of Land Management.

Pan, this is correct. However, this land costs those ranchers nothing or next to nothing because it is shit ground. You may be able to graze 1 head per 4 acres on that ground. There may not be a good well there either. The ground is well-nigh unsuitable for running cattle... or much of anything else. Lewis and Clark mentioned some of those areas as "The Great American Desert" for a reason. It is unproductive land and would sell for next to nothing on the open market.

Also, recall that most of these animals are sold off of grass to a feed lot for finishing. Feed lots don't buy downer cows, either.

Saying that grass-feeding ranchers are the problem is like blaming Gurney's for the root rot on your too-well-watered basil. It's at the wrong stage for the ranchers to have any effect because they no longer have the cattle.

[redarmy]

I was just over at Fulton's shop and we were talking about all this and talk turned to ox tails. David, Fulton's nephew who has killed and butchered a lot of cattle, thinks that ox tails can carry mad cow. He said there's a hole that runs down the spine and into the tail.

As far as Canadian regs concerning specified risk materials go, I talked to the Acting Provincial Vet for Alberta, who told me this:

The definition of oxtail varies, i.e. how far up the spine does it go? The Canadian SRM regs exclude spinal column from cattle more than 30 months of age. Oxtail from low risk cattle--that, is cattle less than 30 months of age--is still okay for human consumption.

I'm not sure how this measures up with the SRM regs in the U.S., especially in regard to the spinal column/oxtail seperation. I guess it'll be one of those things that gets decided as they go along.

EDIT: Crap, I forgot the most important part. She said that if you see it in the supermarket/butcher shop/etc. and it's from an inspected facility (and honestly, what isn't?), then it has been approved for human consumption.

Disclosure: I work for the communications branch of Alberta Agriculture, Food and Rural Development.

Edited January 2, 2004 by redarmy (log)

[Nick]

I was just over at Fulton's shop and we were talking about all this and talk turned to ox tails. David, Fulton's nephew who has killed and butchered a lot of cattle, thinks that ox tails can carry mad cow. He said there's a hole that runs down the spine and into the tail.

As far as Canadian regs concerning specified risk materials go, I talked to the Acting Provincial Vet for Alberta, who told me this:

The definition of oxtail varies, i.e. how far up the spine does it go? The Canadian SRM regs exclude spinal column from cattle more than 30 months of age. Oxtail from low risk cattle--that, is cattle less than 30 months of age--is still okay for human consumption.

I'm not sure how this measures up with the SRM regs in the U.S., especially in regard to the spinal column/oxtail seperation. I guess it'll be one of those things that gets decided as they go along.

EDIT: Crap, I forgot the most important part. She said that if you see it in the supermarket/butcher shop/etc. and it's from an inspected facility (and honestly, what isn't?), then it has been approved for human consumption.

Disclosure: I work for the communications branch of Alberta Agriculture, Food and Rural Development.

I think there are plenty of small slaughterhouses across the US that have no inspection. They're generally in small towns and/or on back roads. Their stuff probably doesn't get too far into the distribution chain though.

Fulton's shop is small. They can kill, split, and hang around 10-12 cattle a day. Or 25-30 lambs. Pigs somewhere in between. Even though it's a small shop, a USDA inspector, a good one, is present five days a week. Maybe that's the key - "a good one." There are USDA inspectors, and there are USDA inspectors. This one takes his job seriously and Fulton wouldn't have it any other way. There's another shop not far away (where I've had chickens killed) and the attitude there is by no means as rigorous as at Fultons. At Fulton's you could literally eat off the floor of the cutting (butchering) room. At the other place you'd probably want to wash off your boots when you left. Both are USDA inspected.

[Pan]

Anna, correct me if I'm wrong, but I understand that ranchers get all kinds of benefits from the government, including the right to graze their cattle for free or almost nothing on huge tracts of public land run by the Bureau of Land Management.

Pan, this is correct. However, this land costs those ranchers nothing or next to nothing because it is shit ground.[...]

Saying that grass-feeding ranchers are the problem is like blaming Gurney's for the root rot on your too-well-watered basil. It's at the wrong stage for the ranchers to have any effect because they no longer have the cattle.

As far as I can tell, nobody's blaming grass-feeding ranchers. All I was doing was pointing out benefits they're getting from the government. And considering that a really large percentage of the land in a whole bunch of mountain states is under the control of the Bureau of Land Management, I find it difficult to believe that land is all shit and almost unsuitable for grazing.

[redarmy]

I was just over at Fulton's shop and we were talking about all this and talk turned to ox tails. David, Fulton's nephew who has killed and butchered a lot of cattle, thinks that ox tails can carry mad cow. He said there's a hole that runs down the spine and into the tail.

As far as Canadian regs concerning specified risk materials go, I talked to the Acting Provincial Vet for Alberta, who told me this:

The definition of oxtail varies, i.e. how far up the spine does it go? The Canadian SRM regs exclude spinal column from cattle more than 30 months of age. Oxtail from low risk cattle--that, is cattle less than 30 months of age--is still okay for human consumption.

I'm not sure how this measures up with the SRM regs in the U.S., especially in regard to the spinal column/oxtail seperation. I guess it'll be one of those things that gets decided as they go along.

EDIT: Crap, I forgot the most important part. She said that if you see it in the supermarket/butcher shop/etc. and it's from an inspected facility (and honestly, what isn't?), then it has been approved for human consumption.

Disclosure: I work for the communications branch of Alberta Agriculture, Food and Rural Development.

I think there are plenty of small slaughterhouses across the US that have no inspection. They're generally in small towns and/or on back roads. Their stuff probably doesn't get too far into the distribution chain though.

Fulton's shop is small. They can kill, split, and hang around 10-12 cattle a day. Or 25-30 lambs. Pigs somewhere in between. Even though it's a small shop, a USDA inspector, a good one, is present five days a week. Maybe that's the key - "a good one." There are USDA inspectors, and there are USDA inspectors. This one takes his job seriously and Fulton wouldn't have it any other way. There's another shop not far away (where I've had chickens killed) and the attitude there is by no means as rigorous as at Fultons. At Fulton's you could literally eat off the floor of the cutting (butchering) room. At the other place you'd probably want to wash off your boots when you left. Both are USDA inspected.

Well, I can only speak with any real knowledge about the Canadian regulations. Up here, every animal that goes to slaughter to be later sold to the public is inspected by a vet (prior) and a food inspector (during, post). Only animals slaughtered at federally inspected facilities can be exported out of province.

Farmers and ranchers can call in the help of a mobile butcher--these are guys who'll come to the farm to slaughter cattle for the family's use. They undergo semi-annual inspections by local health authorities; however, they're only allowed to slaughter cattle for the immediate family use of the farmer/rancher, NOT for sale, with some pretty hefty fines as a deterrent.

The only reason I mentioned the Canadian regs is because nearly all of the new USDA regs are based on the ones announced by Health Canada in August. So it's fair to say that they oxtail debate will be similar to what's happening/happened in Canada.

And I wholeheartedly agree with you: even in the Great White North, there are inspectors and there are inspectors.

[ExtraMSG]

ExtraMSG, aren't you aware of what things were like before there was any government regulation, or at least none to speak of? There were exposes written about that, too. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair comes to mind.

I'll try to keep to the subject at hand as closely as possible, at least the meat industry.

That Upton Sinclair's book (which I had to read in college) was the impetus for a great restructuring of the American meat industry is largely myth. Certainly it had a popular effect. But the wheels were already in motion. A good read on the subject is in Davidson and Lytle's After the Fact. They have a chapter on the USDA.

The meat industry was widely untrusted for years prior to the release of The Jungle. Countries were banning American meat. People were curtailing their carniverous habits.

By the time The Jungle came around, the meat industry needed the regulation and some leaders of the industry publicly said so. The market was largely putting the correction into place, and as is so often the case, the government was actually lagging behind.

Now "buyer beware" has little meaning unfortunately because of a false sense of security instituted by a government stamp of approval. As FFN shows, government inspection is largely meaningless. Thank goodness for consumer watchdog groups, a free press, an effective judicial system, and companies like McD's who fear customers' wrath.

Again, I'm not arguing that government regulation is inherently bad, just that it's a mediocre solution with more effective alternatives. Mad cow and more dangerous food-borne illnesses will not be eradicated by the government trying to put symbolic band-aids on the problem. I just wish people would stop looking to government regulation as their first option just because it seems easier.

[Pan]

It sounds to me like Canadian regulations have been much tighter than American ones.

[Mabelline]

Well, you can pretty much believe it. And not only that, the good land is leased on a twenty-five year option, and renewed everytime it comes around. About the only time it becomes available is if someone disperses a ranch.And right now at this time there are Native Americans attempting to regain use of their own land, which has been leased out to off-res folks 2-4 generations. And it's not easy, because these folks have 'grand-fathered' rights. It's not their fault the government leased to them when Washington was the Great White Landlord.

[Pan]

Sounds like something for a court case.

[Mabelline]

Pan, try nearly 40 years of court cases.

[Pan]

Ugh!

[rozrapp]

Eric Schlosser of Fast Food Nation fame gives his view of the situation on the op-ed page of today's NY Times.

The Cow Jumped Over the U.S.D.A.

[Pan]

Thanks for the link. Seems like he's calling for much stronger government regulations, not deregulation:

Unfortunately, "formal validation" is exactly what we need. And the only way to get it is to begin widespread testing of American cattle for mad cow disease — with particular focus on dairy cattle, the animals at highest risk for the disease and whose meat provides most of the nation's fast food hamburgers.

In addition, we need to give the federal government mandatory recall powers, so that any contaminated or suspect meat can be swiftly removed from the market. As of now all meat recalls are voluntary and remarkably ineffective at getting bad meat off supermarket shelves. And most of all, we need to create an independent food safety agency whose sole responsibility is to protect the public health. Let the Agriculture Department continue to promote American meat worldwide — but empower a new agency to ensure that meat is safe to eat.

Yes, the threat to human health posed by mad cow remains uncertain. But testing American cattle for dangerous pathogens will increase the cost of beef by just pennies per pound. Failing to do so could impose a far higher price, both in dollars and in human suffering.

[ExtraMSG]

Pan, I hope I you didn't understand me to say that FFN argues for less regulation. It's clearly in favor of more. I just come to different conclusions from Schlosser's journalism. I think his muckraking is stronger than his analysis.

[Mabelline]

This is what I was trying to say-the N.C.B.A. is rich and powerful- and they got that money by a squirrelly beef check-off from the raisers. Then they point to it and say we're independently supported by our members.

[Pan]

And actually?

[Nick]

And actually, maybe we've run this into the ground for all it's worth. Factory chicken anyone?

[Mabelline]

Well, actually, you end up with a big ole powerful lobby that decides stuff on their very own. They don't send out any ballots, for sure.

[jsolomon]

As far as I can tell, nobody's blaming grass-feeding ranchers. All I was doing was pointing out benefits they're getting from the government. And considering that a really large percentage of the land in a whole bunch of mountain states is under the control of the Bureau of Land Management, I find it difficult to believe that land is all shit and almost unsuitable for grazing.

Yes, but these are mountains on the east side of the range. This being so, the wind has already dropped its moisture on the west side, so there's not a whole lot of precip to support much growth. Also, cattle are not mountain goats. Cattle do well on hills, to be sure. But, cattle do not do well on rocks, high rises, and low-quality grass. The reason a lot of this ground is still under the BLM is because it would literally cost more to sell the land than it would to lease.

You should really look at some of this land. It's pretty, yes, but, it is dry, desolate, and well-nigh uninhabitable. This is no hand-out they are getting from the US of A. This is just as bad as a company town. They earn just enough to stay in debt. I am certain that Mabelline has seen this sort of thing. It's quite sobering.

[Nick]

J - Which side of the mountains do you live on?