Personal Injury Law

USDA Wins Right To Withhold Mad Cow Test Kits

When is a test a treatment?   Whenever two of three federal judges say so.  That at least would seem to be the answer coming out of Creekstone Farms lengthy attempt to get the U.S. Department of Agriculture to allow it to test all of its animals for Mad Cow disease.

Creekstone wants to go to 100 percent testing of its herd, up from the 1 percent USDA now requires.  Creekstone figures "Mad Cow" tested beef would go over well in South Korea and Japan where the public worries about such things.   USDA, however, said "No."

USDA said it did not want Creekstone putting marketing pressure on big U.S. beef suppliers.  That's when Creekstone took the issue to federal court and won at the trial court level.   USDA filed an appeal.  With some irony, the appeal court battle was carried out while thousands of South Koreans took to the streets and successfully held off U.S. beef over fear of Mad Cow disease for several months.

The U.S. Court of Appeals, however, sided with (surprise!) the government.  In a 2-1 decision, it said 1913 Virus-Serum-Toxin Act gave USDA the authority to prevent sale of mad-cow test kits to meat packers.

The old law gives USDA he power to control products for "prevention, diagnosis, management or care of diseases of animals."    While there is a test for Mad Cow  disease, there is no treatment.  Death is certain.

The Appeals Court made its decision and sent the case back to district court for handling the details. We've not seen any comment out of Creekstone.  It previously said the holdup over testing was costing it $200,000 day.

According to Reuters, 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.

Is it great to know your tax dollars are at work, preventing tests promoting food safety to be used as a "marketing tool?"  

Full post as published by Mad Cow Blog on September 02, 2008 (boomark / email).