The discovery of America's first case of mad cow disease in December focused a lot of attention on the way the nation's meat is raised and processed. That first mad cow was a Washington state dairy cow sent to slaughter reportedly because it was crippled. Moving quickly to calm public fears about the safety of beef, the U.S. Department of Agriculture in January banned all crippled cattle from the human food supply, saying research shows so-called "downer" animals are far more likely to be diseased - with mad cow or other maladies - than outwardly healthy animals.
The ban met with wide public approval. All concern about mad cow aside, many consumers were unpleasantly surprised to learn that the beef industry had been serving up helpings of sick animals in the first place.
It's a big mistake.
The USDA wants to ban for human consumption meat from animals that can't walk and have to be dragged to slaughter. According to the Associated Press, Rehberg wants to exempt from that ban cattle that can't walk because of "fatigue, stress, obdurator nerve paralysis, obesity, or one or more broken or fractured appendages, severed tendons or ligaments, or dislocated joints." His bill is ironically titled the "Consumer and Producer Protection Act."
It may be technically correct to assert there's unlikely to be anything wrong with the tenderloins of a cow with a broken leg. But let's consider this from a marketing standpoint. People buy what they want, not just what somebody else says is good enough.
Would the beef industry like to accurately label meat sold in stores as coming from fatigued, stressed, obdurator-nerve-paralyzed and/or broken-legged animals? Of course not! Most people wouldn't buy it. There's no shortage of beef in this world, so consumers can afford to be picky.
American consumers are a kind of captive market for beef. Trusting the overall safety of American meat, they may well continue buying U.S. beef - even if some of it had to be winched into the slaughterhouse.
But the United States still hasn't won back its export markets for beef, lost when that case of mad cow disease cropped up. Exports traditionally account for 10 percent of beef produced by the United States. Important markets overseas, especially Japan, are holding out for even stricter slaughterhouse safeguards. What do you suppose their opinion is of obdurator nerve paralysis?
As consumers, we'd at least prefer the choice of meat from healthy animals. Until the beef industry labels its products in a way that makes it possible to choose, we'll settle for a common-sense regulation that keeps cuts from injured, sickened animals off our table. Meanwhile, beef producers might be well advised to shore up confidence in the quality of the 35 million outwardly healthy animals slaughtered in this country each year, rather than argue over the palatability of the estimated 150,000 obviously ailing downers the USDA proposes to ban.
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