The Horrors of Tested Meat
Another horrifying passage in Upton Sinclair’s flawless refutation of libertarianism, The Jungle is when beef companies voluntarily choose to test their cows for disease! It’s dreadfully unfair to the companies who DON’T subject their beef to the same tests. Jurgis Rudkus longs for a brighter day when companies aren’t allowed to perform these safety tests.
Just think of the anarchic nightmare that might ensue if the government allowed these tests. That’s what libertarians would force upon us!WASHINGTON (Reuters) — Meatpacker John Stewart has sued the U.S. government to provide it with cattle testing kits so his Kansas company can prove to customers, especially in mad cow-leery Japan, that its beef is safe.
Stewart’s firm, Creekstone Farms Premium Beef, wants to test all its slaughter cattle for mad cow disease. Its suit, filed this week in U.S. district court in Washington, would force the Agriculture Department to give it access to test kits for the brain-wasting disease…..
Critics in the cattle industry said Creekstone is trying to hijack food safety regulations for financial advantage. The American Meat Institute, representing meatpackers, said BSE testing almost always is a government function worldwide.
Public health is protected not by mad cow tests, a USDA spokesman said, but by federal rules that ban the use of cattle parts in cattle feed and require the removal from carcasses of older cattle the brains, spinal columns and nervous tissue most at risk of carrying the infective agent for mad cow.