Jughead
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5547
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posted 23 April 2004 09:05 PM
Someone needs to pick up on this story.
The current government strategies in Canada, US, and UK for dealing with mad cow disease amount to a cover up. The basis of the cover up is this:
- Cattle do not show signs of Mad Cow before 30 months
- The risk to humans of consuming infected meat is claimed to be very low.
- The governments therefore are allowing infected cattle, which do not show signs of the disease, to go to market for human consumption, gambling that there is little risk of human infection. More importantly, the governments have decided that this risk is out-weighed by the value of the beef industry. It may be that the risks of mad cow are minimal. Assuming then, that it is impossible to irradicate the disease in cattle (which is not at all the case), it is the role of government to educate the public as to the vanishingly small risk, and then to allow consumers to decide their level of risk tolerance. It is unacceptable that they should simply cover up the risks. The US example below is merely the most blatant case of a cover-up. The Canadian and UK policies are comparable.
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20040420-052613-8197r
From: uhuh | Registered: Apr 2004
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