Court bars meat company from testing for Mad Cow.

Supporting the USDA in it’s decision, the federal court ruled today that Greenstone Farms can not test on its own cattle for Mad Cow, aka Bovine spongiform encephalopathy.

WTF? Why wouldn’t the federal government want all our meat tested for this insidious disease? The small, so-called boutique meat packer, Creekstone Farms Premium Beef LLC, wants to test all it’s cattle but the USDA says nope. From Reuters:

In a 25-page ruling, Appellate Judges Karen Henderson and Judith Rogers said USDA has authority under the 1913 Virus-Serum-Toxin Act to prevent sale of mad-cow test kits to meatpackers. USDA interprets the law to control products for “prevention, diagnosis, management or care of diseases of animals.”

David Sentelle, chief judge of the District of Columbia appeals circuit, dissented from the decision. He said USDA “exceeds the bounds of reasonableness” for a law enacted to prevent the sale of ineffective animal medicine.

Such bullshit. A 1913 law that was enacted to prevent scurrilous snake oil salesmen from preying on cattlemen is now being used to prevent a truely positive method of testing from being used that would insure the meat is safe to eat with regard to Mad Cow. Exceeds the bounds of reasonableness?

Its fuckwitted indeed Judge Sentelle, off the charts I would say. Our entire supply of beef should under go such testing.