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...problem for the cattle ranchers is that the slaughtering of about 1.6 million dairy cows will provide a large new source of meat to the market and thus further depress beef prices. After the USDA announced March 28 that more than enough dairy farmers had volunteered for the slaughter program, the price of April beef futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange dipped from 58.2 cents per lb. to 52.6 cents...
...first of a whole generation of better animal vaccines. Main had participated in a field test of the vaccine last year by allowing 250 of his piglets to be inoculated. None of them or of others involved in the test contracted the disease, and in January the USDA licensed Biologics Corp., a vaccine manufacturer in Omaha, to put Omnivac on the market. "It seems to be safe," says Main. "I don't know what all the commotion is about...
...dustup was stirred by Jeremy Rifkin, a Washington-based gadfly and an implacable foe of genetic engineering (see box), who filed a petition with the USDA demanding suspension of Biologics' license. In issuing that license, Rifkin charged, the department had not only failed to follow federal guidelines for releasing live, genetically altered organisms into the environment but also neglected to conduct an environmental assessment of the risks involved. Stung by the petition and aware of Rifkin's uncanny success in obtaining court injunctions to back his demands, the USDA beat a hasty retreat. Bert Hawkins, administrator of the department...
FOOTNOTE: *Under current, overlapping regulations, frost-inhibiting bacteria are considered microbial pesticides and must be approved by the EPA for field testing or use. Gene-spliced animal biologics and plants require USDA clearance; human and animal drugs need Food and Drug Administration approval...
Many farmers and animal-rights activists, however, say the branding is unnecessarily cruel. Protesters marched last week in front of the USDA offices in Washington, symbolically branding one another on their right cheeks with sponges that had been dipped in paint. Some demonstrators suggested that cows could be identified with an ear tag, a tattoo or even a strategically placed microchip. Late in the week a federal district court judge in Rochester, responding to a complaint from the local Humane Society against Agriculture Secretary Richard Lyng, issued a temporary restraining order to halt the branding and directed the USDA...