Word: usda
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...debate over safe meat continues, the search for alternatives to costly screening procedures will no doubt go into high gear. For instance, the USDA wants us to consider irradiating our meat - zapping it with a sterilizing ray in order to kill any lurking bacteria. The process, despite its vaguely creepy space-age image, is completely safe, says Donnelly. But it has not gained acceptance from much of the public...
...Department of Agriculture is not taking any chances that Europe's mad-cow disease will get a hoofhold here. This week the USDA will destroy 360 Vermont sheep, even though the agency does not know for sure that the animals have the disease--and may not know for two years. The sheep were imported from Europe in 1996. In 1998 the USDA placed them in quarantine after learning they may have consumed contaminated feed. Last July four of the animals developed transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, a class of diseases that includes mad cow. Within days, the USDA issued an emergency order...
...protect U.S. herds--and the financial well-being of 2.1 million U.S. farms--the USDA took dramatic steps. More than 1,800 inspectors are stationed in 90 ports of entry around the country. Anyone violating customs rules is subject to a $1,000 fine. "Each day, 250,000 travelers enter the U.S.," says Craig Reed, a USDA administrator. "Any of them could bring a disease that could devastate our agricultural economy...
While Europe's internal embargoes are, by some measures, stricter than the USDA's, some in the European community detect a whiff of protectionism in Washington's moves. David Byrne, E.U. health commissioner, called the new regulations "excessive and unnecessary." The French newspaper Le Figaro groused that the world is "divided between contaminated countries and those barricading themselves behind drastic health and commercial barriers." The French government, however, has remained tellingly quiet. And in Germany, the media voiced full-throated approval of the new restrictions. "Animals are being dragged through the whole world in huge numbers," wrote the daily Tagesspiel...
...debate plays out, it is unlikely to have an impact on U.S. policy. Partly by vigorous policing, Americans have dodged the mad-cow bullet, and officials aren't inclined to take foot-and-mouth less seriously. "Inspectors make up the first line of defense," says Richard Dunkle, a USDA administrator. It is a line they're determined to keep unbreached...