Federal Court Allows USDA to Suppress Testing for Mad
Cow Disease
* Court bars meatpacker tests for mad cow
By Charles Abbott
Reuters, August 29, 2008
Straight to the Source
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Agriculture Department is within bounds to bar
meatpackers from testing slaughter cattle for mad cow disease, a U.S. Court
of Appeals panel said in a 2-1 ruling on Friday.
Creekstone Farms Premium Beef LLC, a small Arkansas packer, filed suit on
March 23, 2006, to gain access to mad-cow test kits. It said it wanted to
test every animal at its plant to assure foreign buyers that the meat was
safe to eat.
Three U.S. cases of mad cow disease, a fatal neurological infection, have
been reported, the last in March 2006. People can contract a human version
of the disease by eating infected meats. Most nations banned U.S. beef after
the first case, in December 2003, but trade has been restored for the most
part.
In a 25-page ruling, Appellate Judges Karen Henderson and Judith Rogers said
USDA has authority under the 1913 Virus-Serum-Toxin Act to prevent sale of
mad-cow test kits to meatpackers. USDA interprets the law to control
products for "prevention, diagnosis, management or care of diseases of
animals."
David Sentelle, chief judge of the District of Columbia appeals circuit,
dissented from the decision. He said USDA "exceeds the bounds of
reasonableness" for a law enacted to prevent the sale of ineffective animal
medicine.
USDA allows the mad-cow test kits to be sold only to laboratories that it
approves. It says the tests should not be used as a marketing tool and the
cattle that comprise the bulk of the meat supply are too young to be tested
reliably.
Two large export markets, Japan and South Korea, accept beef only from
younger U.S. cattle. Mad cow is found mostly in older cattle. Its incubation
period is two to eight years.
Creekstone said it lost $200,000 a day due to reduced U.S. beef exports when
it filed its lawsuit.
In its lawsuit, Creekstone argued the 1913 law could not be invoked to
prevent use of products like "rapid test" kits for mad cow disease and the
kits were not a "treatment" for livestock.
U.S. District Judge James Robinson had ruled in March 2007 that USDA could
not control mad cow tests because they are not a treatment for animals.
The United States applies a number of safeguards against mad cow, formally
named bovine spongiform encephalopathy. They include a ban on using cattle
parts in feed and requirements for packers to remove at slaughter the
materials most likely to carry the mad-cow agent -- the brain, spinal column
and nervous system tissue.
(Editing by Walter Bagley)
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