Hold the beef

Wow, I'm losing my appetite for steak.

"At the moment, there appears to be an outbreak of mad cow disease in Japan... and American researchers are incredibly nervous that we may be on the verge of a deadly mad cow outbreak here in the United States. That’s what makes the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s approach so troubling.

As it stands, the U.S. Department of Agriculture refuses to even consider the main recommendations put forward by the World Health Organization that have stopped mad cow disease across Europe. What are these recommendations? The first is testing. The other is to stop the practice of feeding cow blood, tissue, and slaughterhouse waste to other cows.

I can hear some of you now: “Come on, Shuster, that feeding practice is so grotesque it couldn’t possibly be happening in the United States.”

Actually, it is happening a lot. Sure, there are some livestock producers who don’t give their animals the kind of feed that contains cow blood or waste. But many livestock producers do. And the fact is, much of the commercially produced calf feed available today contains the very stuff that could spread mad cow disease throughout our food chain."