Why is it illegal to test cows for mad cow disease?

Question

There are lot of ranchers that want to test their cows but the government made it illegal for them to do this! They are only testing a very small amount of cows and the ranchers that want to test all their cattle to prove they have good cows are told they will go to jail if they test any of their cows!!! Don't the government want us to know beef is ok? Or are they hiding just how many cows are really sick? The test is cheap so they can't say they make voluntary testing illegal because of the cost.

Answer 1

I think it is a profit thing. Darminator you should read 'Fast food Nation' and that will tell you how much ahem better?!? the meat producing conditions are in the USA. Britain is actually better when it comes to beef shame - about the turkeys, Eh!!
George, I can't understand why such a thing would be illegal. It must be a case of the meat marketing association sponsoring the police or something equally as sordid !! American meat-eaters are playing Russian roulette with their lives and they don't even care. What will it take for your authorities to sit up and take notice? Will it be when you get people suffering from vCJD (a terminal disease BTW) in your country for the government to sit up and take notice?

Answer 2

The very simple truth without all those fancy media/scientific terms is: the cows were fed with sheep's brain and developed Mad Cow disease. The scientists have no cure for this disease. The beef supply for America and Europe is a gigantic amount. And that's the kind of supply for just 1 day. There's not enough time to check the entire amount for contamination of any kind. A random batch test is usually carried out and even this takes some hours. A more detailed test will be carried out on that particular batch of meat only when someone falls ill or dies from eating contaminated meat.

Answer 3

Because the labelization of a group of cows have mad cow disease is based more on politic, and not based on whether or not the cows have the disease.


If you want to deprive farmers from selling their cows or even just owning them, you just label their cows as cows with disease and they will lose their ability to trade cows perhaps even losing their cows.

If the farmers can clear their cows by themself, you lose part of your ability to label the cows as cows with disease. But there's still the ability of bans and boycotts, which are more politically based and not health based.



The same goes for poultry and bird flu.

Answer 4

I did a quick google search on "BSE test" and came up with the links listed below. It seems the US government really is blocking testing!!

http://www.creekstonefarmspremiumbeef.com/news_bse_press.html
http://www.landandlivestockpost.com/livestock/041806creekstone.php

Here's a link to a LIVE animal test:

http://www.altegen.com/bseplus.htm

Here's some other interesting links on the topic:

http://www.aphis.usda.gov/newsroom/hot_issues/bse.shtml
http://harkin.senate.gov/news.cfm?id=242006
http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/other/bse/news/jul2006bse.html

And to Hank, I regularly see postings from UK etc with information that's useless to us here in the US. If it really bothered me I have the option to see only US questions! Since you are angered by US questions mayhaps you should exercise your option to see only questions from your home country!

Looking at the links above that I collected in just a few minutes it really does seem there is a serious flaw with the US meat industry.

Glad I'm a vegetarian.

Answer 5

i wish we would just stop feeding animals other animals! fact is you can't test for Mad cow(bse) till animal is dead.

How BSE Is Currently Diagnosed

There is no test to detect the disease in a live animal. Currently there are two laboratory methods to confirm a diagnosis of BSE: 1. microscopic examination of the brain tissue to identify characteristic changes; 2. techniques to detect the partially-proteinase resistant form of the prion (PrPres) protein. These techniques are immunohistochemistry, immunoblotting and ELISA.

Answer 6

I do not know but US may export a big part of its meat production to other countries so they do not want to be known their cows are ill.

Answer 7

Its all about the money....They would rather take the chance on the public getting infected, which has a long incubation period, than to pre test the meat we consume.

Answer 8

I really get angry with arrogant and self-centered Americans out here such as you who ask Questions or give Answers ignoring the fact that Yahoo Answers -English is being visited by people in all the English speaking countries indicated by the flags at the bottom of this page (and by many people in the non-English speaking countries, as well)!!!!!!

The restriction on mad-cow testing is an American FDA rule, only. And, yes, it sucks.

Answer 9

BSE testing is compulsory in the UK. An alarming number of infected animals were found and destroyed.

Cattle generally has slightly better conditions in the US, but if testing was allowed and compulsory, then yes, it would be alarming.

Please post your sources in additional details.

Answer 10

You cannot test for mad cow disease unless the animal is dead....