MAD ABOUT COWS….Four years ago I first reported about the travails of Creekstone Farms, a Kansas beef producer that wanted to initiate 100% testing of its cattle for mad cow disease so that it could sell into the Japanese market. It was the free market at work: a plucky little company taking advantage of emerging technology to maintain its share in a foreign market and help improve our trade deficit. Just the kind of thing George Bush talks about all the time.
Except that George Bush wouldn’t let them do it. Might upset the big producers, you see, who were afraid consumer pressure might force them to eventually perform 100% testing too. Today, via Dean Baker, I see that the DC Circuit Court has finally ruled in the Bush administration’s favor. America’s meat processing industry — which, coincidentally I’m sure, favors the GOP in its campaign contributions by more than 3:1 over Democrats — can breathe a sigh of relief.
