The Government Frowns on BSE Testing

You might, or might not, remember when a Federal Judge ruled that <a href="http://nowherethoughts.net/sarpysam/plugin/tag/creekstone+farms+premium+beef">Creekstone Farms Premium Beef could test the cattle they slaughter for <acronym title="Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy">BSE</acronym></a> at the end of March. The Judge also stayed his ruling to give the Government the chance to appeal his verdict.<br />n<br />nNo surprise, the <a href="http://www.brownfieldnetwork.com/gestalt/go.cfm?objectid=DEB0317E-AD16-A481-450588E69AFE2A63"><acronym title="United States Department of Agriculture, Bought and Paid for by The Big Meat Packers">USDA</acronym> has decided to appeal the ruling</a>. The Feds obviously don't like the idea of a company doing any self regulation and doing the right thing to open up their export market.<br />n<br />nThe argument I really love is the one about cost.<br />n<br />n<blockquote>One argument is that the cost to Creekstone for testing all of the roughly 300,000 cattle it slaughters each year would be much less than that of large meat packers, some of which slaughter millions of cattle a year. That, critics say, would give Creekstone an unfair competitive advantage in international markets.</blockquote><br />n<br />nOkay, maybe I am missing something here but if a <acronym title="Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy">BSE</acronym> test costs say $10 per head (Theoretical number, I have no idea how much they cost) isn't the cost of the test going to be $10 per head whether you test 300,00 cattle or a million cattle? In gross numbers the company that slaughters millions of cattle would pay more in for the test but they also sell more product so there profit or loss per head change will be the same as the smaller company so it will not affect there overall profitability. In fact the larger company could probably cut a better deal for test kits and do it in a larger, more efficient manner so there cost per head would actually be less than Creekstones' due to efficiency of size. This reason is the biggest bunch of bullshit I have heard in a long time.<br />n<br />nIf Creekstone wishes to test for <acronym title="Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy">BSE</acronym> they should be allowed to, pure and simple. Let the company that wants to be more safe in this matter than the <acronym title="United States Department of Agriculture, Bought and Paid for by The Big Meat Packers">USDA</acronym> alone. This really make the <acronym title="United States Department of Agriculture, Bought and Paid for by The Big Meat Packers">USDA</acronym> look like they are trying to hide something.<br />n<br />n<strong>Law is a formless mass of isolated decisions. Morris Raphael Cohen </strong>