Japan’s prime minister says his country has halted the import of U.S. beef after an animal spine was found in a beef shipment at Tokyo International Airport.
In December, Japan lifted the ban on U.S. beef, saying new safety measures would decrease the public’s risk of contamination due to BSE, or Mad Cow Disease, from American beef. Under the new regulations announced at the time, only cows younger than 20 months could be exported to Japan, and all brain, spinal cord and other material must be removed.
The incompetents managing inspection of US beef obviously can’t get it together for their most profitable export market. Are they doing any better on the meat they pass for domestic consumption?
The short answer is no. Most of the meat processed in the US is not Government Inspected. Most packing plants use their own inspectors. The Government Inspectors will sometimes show up and sample the meat, but most gets through with only in-plant inspection.
Also, American cattle have very poor traceability. Canadian cattle may be traced all the way back to their birth, including mother and sire. Even if the cow is sold, the records can be traced back. This not only helps with weight gain and health monitoring, but may pinpoint any cows from an infected herd.
Capitalism. Ain’t it just wonderful how it works? Get the regulators out of the way, let those who know what they are doing just go ahead and do it. They can self regulate themselves.
And the answer is no. The guy above is not alone. The decision was made years ago to cut funding to inspection programs because it was a waste of taxpayer money and that money should stay with the tax payer (or in reality – the top 5% of income earners, i.e., the rich).
So, if we have poor inspection programs, along with poor support for the poor, poor healthcare, and the list goes on, you can trace this back to conservative’s cuts to government income and therefore government services we need, such as the USDA inspection programs. As I mention, most of this money goes to the rich who don’t need it. Any serious attempts to stop this have been blocked long ago. It matters not that we can do much better by developing systems like Canada’s or eliminate Salmonella in eggs, like other countries can. It’s deemed not possible, out of hand, without even trying, because it would cost “too much money” despite the success of said programs in other countries.
It’s up to us to educate this type of thought out of existance and, if people who insist on thinking this way refuse to be educated, humble such thought patterns out of existence. Does this mean we must humiliate and shout down the leaders of this line of thought (i.e. the conservative thought system post-Nixon onward)? Yes. And drum them out of the country if need be. They can go to Russia and live a happy corrupt life but they shouldn’t exist here.
You really dont want an answer to that do you??
Dairy cattle are kept in a constant pregnancy state for >5 years, until they cant make milk anymore.
We Pump them with chemicals so much, that we use 200,000 LESS cattle now then we did 7 years ago to make the SAME amount of milk products.
FEW EVER get to range, for more then grains. And get fat in the pins.
About 60% of the meat in stores is COW, from dairys. And you wonder why its so FATTY.
Have you noticed the change in taste, in the last 20 years?
In my area there are a few Cattle ranchs(not for Dairy) and the ranchers will sell you 1 beef, cut and wrapped, for $2 a pound for the WHOLE thing. And how much do we pay at the store?
Let me say it this way…
What color is BLOOD? DONT say RED…It isnt RED. Its DARK reg to burgandy..Cut your wrist, and if you see anything LESS then DARK red, I suggest you get to the hospital.
Did you know Chickens ALSO have Dark red blood? or used to anyway.
If these beef exporters can’t get their acts together, it’s their lose.
Sounds like a PETA plot to me…
Reading fast food nation, alone, will make you fear this industry. The only US industry, that I’m aware of, who cannot be forced to do a recall. The government may request it, but does not have the authority to require it — and typically these meat packing companies do so for PR purposes… weeks after such events are known (meaning, most of the meat is already consumed by then).
I have not eaten at a fast food restuarant, save In N’ Out Burger, in 3-4 years, and I rarely touch beef now, maybe three times a year. I’d eat it more, if I could trust where it came from.
It’s ironic, isn’t it, how far we’ve come and yet how far we are from the ideals of Upton Sinclair’s, the Jungle:
http://www.online-literature.com/upton_sinclair/jungle/
Just go vegan. You’ll be healthier, less cruel, and you’ll never have nightmares of mad cow ridden spines mixing in with your cheeseburger.
Cruel is telling your fellow human beings they’re cruel for following natural instinct.
government doesnt care about inspecting beef because it is a disease that is not traceable. they aren’t worried about mad cow disease and they are certainly not worried about this thing called Crutz-Jacobs which is a brain wasting illness similar to mad cow but it can incubate in your body for years before spreading. what that means is that ic ould eat a piece of contaminated beef today and not die of this illness for another 15 years. What does that mean? that the beef industry can’t be held accountable. people die from crutz-jacobs all the time; some say it is genetic, others say it could be contaminated meat, but science so far has failed to prove that Crutz-Jacobs is contracted from bad meat and that makes our government happy and the beef industry happy because nobody can prove it was contaminated beef that is causing people to have this illness. the beef industry won’t fix these problems unless people make them. it has to cost them more money NOT to inspect the beef than it does to inspect the beef.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but think about it: Yes the chances of getting these diseases are low, but wouldn’t it be better just to be safe than sorry anyway? I know I would.
And some studies point out that these brain wasting illnesses can spread to humans from chickens, from pigs, and from beef, which pretty much means as long as they keep feeding chicken to cows and cows to pigs and pigs to chickens, it ain’t gonna slow up anytime soon.
Google “Posilac” and you’ll start reading milk labels much more closely.
Canada refused to approve Posilac because the Canadain consumer prefers not to have excessive PUS in their milk. As a matter of fact I think the US is the only country that has approved Posilac.
And Spam, Paul — Spam. You may as well eat a few more noses than the sausage provides.
This is hardly a surprising development. I’m guessing that the great majority of beef exported from the US is processed by large companies. The government thinking that these companies will police themselves is the stupidest thing ever.
That is just the haves looking out for the haves. Government and corporations could care less about Joe Average. Here is a bit from the web page of thecorporation.com which pretty much sums it up
THE PATHOLOGY OF COMMERCE: CASE HISTORIES
To more precisely assess the “personality” of the corporate “person,” a checklist is employed, using actual diagnostic criteria of the World Health Organization and the DSM-IV, the standard diagnostic tool of psychiatrists and psychologists. The operational principles of the corporation give it a highly anti-social “personality”: It is self-interested, inherently amoral, callous and deceitful; it breaches social and legal standards to get its way; it does not suffer from guilt, yet it can mimic the human qualities of empathy, caring and altruism. Four case studies, drawn from a universe of corporate activity, clearly demonstrate harm to workers, human health, animals and the biosphere. Concluding this point-by-point analysis, a disturbing diagnosis is delivered: the institutional embodiment of laissez-faire capitalism fully meets the diagnostic criteria of a “psychopath.”
If you want to eat real beef and safe beef find a rancher or “farm gate” operation and buy from them as ECA suggested. You will get a much better product at 25% of what you will pay at a big chain store. The added bonus is that if it is bad you can go and personally kick his ass instead of venting on some poor wage slave shmuck.
Regardless of how many people died 100 years ago, any preventable death TODAY is wrong. If you insist upon resting on your laurels then you get left behind. In any health related area, if there is room for improvement, then do it!
Most people getting e.coli don’t realize it unless they become so sick they are hospitalized. Most just suffer the diarrhea and vomiting not knowing where it came from; calling it “stomach flu”. By the time any health investigation is underway the source is gone. Only when there is a death is there any publicity.
So now Paul is in favour of contaminated food! I wonder what it would take for Paul to not support the Republican position…
Oh I forgot. Paul is a registered independent. Or he’s a Republican who’s fought against hundreds of Republican policies. Or both. Whatever the headquarters viral marketing team suggests.
Anyone with a name like paul, should be very careful about making jest of another’s name.
I agree, the quality of meat today is relatively good. I had a steak last night in fact. I find it very amusing though that someone would actually argue against improving the quality of a food product. The sky is not falling, but there is no excuse for allowing brain or nerve tissue into the meat supply when the contract specifically states NO nerve tissue. If this meat packer is capable of doing this then what else are they allowing into their exports?
You know there is the fact that cattle today are bred for their marbling (fat) and are fed antibiotics at every meal. It is strongly believed that many of the antibiotic resistant bacteria became resistant because of their exposure in cattle and other farm animals.
C’mon paul, show the world you know a few polysyllabic words. Post another inane, asinine, irrelevant comment so we may once again revel in your blather. Then have another coffee. And maybe some spam, low sodium please.
Pat. Paul, aka AB CD et al, is quite intelligent. The Republicans are quite careful to hire intelligent people as viral marketers.
“on the GOP’s payroll?”
You might be doing it for free Paul, AB CD etc. Probably post as a liberal strawman now and then. Do it on several boards as well. I’ve seen your type plenty of times.
pat, apparently, you can’t read. well, no. i take that back. you can read. but your self-imposed mental filters prevent you from actually understand what was written.
I read quite well, thank you paul. But maybe I could pose the question to you, did you bother to read what I wrote? Can you comprehend what was written before going off all bent out of shape? Did you think that line questioning those that support the meat industry was aimed at you? Yes, you would. Everything is about you. No one may post on this blog without it being a personal attack on you. And then you need to shoot back, too often preemptively.
Example: ah. thanks milo. the lunatic fringe checks in, right on cue!
actually, hmm – milo, milo…..isn’t soylent green made of milo?
Comment by Paul Theodoropoulos — 1/20/2006 @ 8:41 pm
yes. paul, I accept that you not only have an opinion, but I support your right to express it. When that expression is abused into personal attacks then I start to question why I support your right to speak. Just because someone disagrees with you though, is not a reason to make personal attacks. Many people have disagreed with my position, and I with theirs. That has no bearing on the type of person they are. They might never agree with me, or always. I might think some people are a little off base, some have been brainwashed, and some fervently, truly believe they are right. At the end of the day though, I want to respect them. Your posts often make that difficult.
#24 Paul:
Viral marketing exists.
The Republican party exists.
The Republican party needs to market itself.
You Paul post the Republican party talking points on any position without variance. It is you who agree with positions too consistently to be real. I’m sure you have other personas to support the marketing as well but it’s the one that always takes the party view on everything that gives it away.
Paul —
1. I can’t sort out all your intended editing. Please think about creating offline, editing and proofing and then posting.
2. We’re sneaking up on the three of you violating about a third of the commenting guidelines. They are here for a purpose.
3. At minimum — everyone — please try to manage the length of your comments. You will provoke editing — and none of us except John is any good at editing.
4. There’s a quid pro quo about the Republikans and MoveOn.org. The latter would hardly exist otherwise [I had to comment a wee bit].
I rest my case
You have yet to deny it Paul.
A note to all:
We apply the guidelines daily. We’re just easy on the folks who offer legit content. The rest get disappeared en toto — which is why they’re not noticed. Or missed.