KRAMER VS. The Mad Cows

By IRWIN KRAMER
The Daily Record
January 12, 2004

Though the USDA has turned mad cows into scapegoats, its mad scientists have placed public relations over public safety. While the agency was quick to blame other nations for “mad cow disease,” efforts to protect foreign consumers far outrank the rhetoric of our own bureaucrats.

Mad cow disease, or “bovine spongiform encephalopathy,” turns bovine brains into sponge, causing these cows a painful deterioration and death. When this dreaded infection first surfaced in the United Kingdom in the mid-1980s, countries throughout Europe and Asia took strong action to control an epidemic that sparked worldwide hysteria.

As the infection spread from British bovines to people throughout Europe and Asia, stomachs began to turn with unpalatable predictions that hundreds of thousands would suffer the same horrible fate. Those infected by contaminated meat experienced progressive dementia, loss of coordination and certain death.

To protect others from the incurable wrath of the mad cow, the British destroyed millions of cattle. Scientists throughout Europe and Asia conducted extensive studies to find the cause of this disease. Tracing the infection to contaminated feed composed of brain and spinal tissue recycled to fatten these cows for slaughter, they spared no expense to test millions of cattle for any sign of the dreaded infection.

Though foreign nations put their money where their mouths are, the feds decided to feed us bull, instead.

When others protected their consumers from mad cows, the USDA protected the American cattle industry from mad consumers. Rather than ruin our appetites with extensive testing, the agency fought mad cow disease with “anger management.” After banning the import of overseas cattle, the feds appeased our fears by proclaiming the purity of the American food chain. Having protected our borders from these bovine terrorists, we could rest assured that no red-blooded American cow would ever go mad.

As the feds condemned the “inferior standards” of countries that tested millions of cattle, no one seemed to notice that the USDA only tested 20,000 cows a year, while permitting the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of sick cows. Without checking them for signs of mad cow disease, the USDA boasted that no mad cow was ever “discovered” on American soil.

With the discovery of one mad cow in America, the USDA must now manage the anger of more than 30 countries that have banned the import of American meat. Faced with billions of dollars in lost exports, the agency has decided to implement “very aggressive actions” to test American cows. Unwilling to take any responsibility for years of neglect, the USDA has even traced the cow’s ancestry, dubbing Canada as the new scapegoat in the spread of mad cow disease. Despite American assurances of safety, countries that have long implemented aggressive safety measures while suffering from American embargos are finding this news feed rather hard to swallow.

As this madness intensifies, appetites diminish ... and American cows have never been calmer.