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USDA and Beef Industry Giants Fight Small Producer Wanting to Ensure Safe Meat

April 10, 2004 by staff

Beef firm faces perplexing resistance to mad cow tests

By USA Today editorial staff 
First published by the USA Today, March, 26, 2004

Creekstone Farms Premium Beef is a small producer of high-quality beef in Kansas. But it’s making a big point about mad cow disease. It wants to privately test all of the cattle it slaughters for the illness, which can cause a fatal brain disease in humans who eat infected meat. The way Creekstone Farms sees it, 100% testing would reassure U.S customers. The company also says it is talking with Japan about restarting exports there, where total testing is required.

But the firm has run into surprising obstacles: from the federal government, which has pledged to do everything possible to detect the disease, and from the meat industry, which has scrambled to keep consumer confidence since December. That’s when the first U.S. case of mad cow was found in a Washington cow imported from Canada.

Their reasoning is as confounding as government foot-dragging over approving private testing. And it ill-serves confused customers who are looking for stronger assurances that the meat they buy is safe.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) currently does not allow such private testing for mad cow disease. And it claims that a new government testing system it approved this month is perfectly adequate. More than 10 times the number of cattle will be tested for mad cow under the new system, but the government still will be testing less than 1% of the 37 million cattle slaughtered in the U.S. each year. That falls far short of the 100% testing Creekstone Farms is proposing and Japan provides.

Other beef producers complain that Creekstone Farms’ 100% testing plans would set an expensive precedent. They worry that consumers might be misled into thinking an untested cut of beef isn’t safe. But food producers ranging from organic growers to free-range farmers already market their products based on the idea that food produced in healthier ways or with added safeguards is worth paying for. Creekstone Farms’ proposal taps into the same logic.

Other beef producers and the USDA say going beyond the new system is unnecessary. But hundreds of seemingly healthy cattle in Europe have tested positive for mad cow disease.

Rather than blocks on private efforts to strengthen beef testing, what’s really needed are tougher test regimens for all U.S. cattle. U.S. consumer advocates say this requires testing all cattle over 20 months, since current tests can’t detect the long-incubating disease in younger cattle.

In contrast, the new U.S. system will test up to 268,000 cattle over a period of 18 months, including all that appear sick plus a random sample of about 20,000 others.

Americans are willing to fund a higher level of reassurance. A January poll by the Consumers Union showed that 95% of adults would pay 10 cents more a pound for tested beef. Testing every slaughtered cow would cost about six cents per pound.

Scientists are developing promising, inexpensive mad cow tests, including a simple blood test. Until they are perfected, letting Creekstone Farms carry out full testing under USDA oversight not only seems reasonable, it also could provide an important measure of the usefulness of 100% testing.

© 2004 USA Today

Related stories:

  • An opposing view from corporate beef producers’ PR chief.
  • Small ranchers win legal battle against giant meatpackers
  • USDA protects industry giants better than public health

Filed Under: Food, Health & Environment, Globalization

Corporations the Only Winners in Occupation of Iraq

September 13, 2003 by staff

By Devin Nordberg
September 13, 2003

“It’s not about oil. It’s not about oil.”

But we’re taking their oil. And not just to finance reconstruction.

Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator of the Iraqi occupation, made that clear back in July when he declared that Iraq needs to accept foreign investment and privatization of its oil before a permanent government is put in charge of the country. In other words, democracy is welcome only after the most important economic decisions for the future of Iraqis have been decided for them.

You’d think that such a blatant rejection of democracy and obvious grab at Iraq’s oil would attract more notice. Bremer made it clear that corporations take priority over people in Iraq, and that the Bush Administration’s occupation will continue that.

The Bush occupation of Iraq has an eerie similarity to another intervention in the Middle East that occurred 50 years ago — the CIA-British coup that ousted Iran’s democratically elected leader, Mohammed Mossadegh, and installed the infamous Shah of Iran.

So when Arab nations greet our rhetoric of creating democracy with suspicion or outright derision, we’ve earned it. Iranians struggled successfully for democracy and U.S. politicians promptly crushed their dream.

Then as now, the United States and Great Britain used violence to prevent Iraq and Iran from controlling their own oil.

This set of priorities contrasts sharply to the U.S. occupation of Japan after World War II, when Americans sat down with Japanese scholars and collaboratively designed and implemented one of the most progressive, democratic constitutions in the world*. We can take pride for having helped Japan evolve into a peaceful, stable, and prosperous country that is one of our closest allies. Today, Iranian and Iraqi people resent our support of their previous corrupt regimes and, understandably, don’t trust our intentions now.

The differences between American occupations of 1945 Japan and 2003 Iraq reflect the rise of corporate power here and abroad, and within the Bush administration in particular. Dick Cheney’s former company, Halliburton, is already cashing in on Iraqi “rebuilding” contracts that it obtained from the U.S. government. The oil companies that donated so heavily to the Bush campaign will reap huge profits if they are allowed to take over oil production in Iraq. The weapons makers profit from Bush’s policies as well, and even telecommunications companies stand to benefit, since Bremer intends to give foreign corporations license to operate mobile phone networks in Iraq.

It’s no surprise that Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld have been advocating an invasion of Iraq since at least 1998 through the Project for a New American Century. It could be argued that Saddam Hussein has been a marked man since he nationalized Iraqi oil back in 1973, but that’s another story.

Meanwhile, the American occupation of Iraq increasingly resembles the cycle of violence between Palestinians and Israelis: American soldiers are ambushed and killed, and the U.S. military retaliates by rounding up and imprisoning Iraqi “suspects,” including civilians, women, and children as young as 11. More Iraqi violence results, and the cycle continues. Iraqis have little hope that American troops will withdraw anytime soon and have not been treated with dignity or human rights by their occupiers.

How did the American ideals of liberty and justice become hollow slogans for presidents to use to justify military attacks abroad? Ever since Eisenhower warned us of the dangers of the military-industrial complex, it has become steadily more powerful. Corporations should not be allowed to influence foreign policy.

Yet the Bush administration’s foreign policy, like domestic policy, often seems to come directly from corporate board rooms. For example, Executive Order 13303 grants complete legal immunity to transnational oil companies operating in Iraq. While U.S. soldiers attempt to establish law and order in Iraq, Bush has put oil companies above the law.

The time to end the occupation of Iraq is overdue. We should pull our troops out before more of them die, hand the temporary administration of Iraq over to the United Nations, let the U.N. weapons inspectors back in Iraq, fund the rebuilding of Iraq through the U.N., and allow Iraqis to choose their own government.

The best way for us to fight terrorism is to advance justice; and justice will not be possible as long as corporations are prioritized over people.

© 2003 ReclaimDemocracy.org

Devin Nordberg is a volunteer for ReclaimDemocracy.org.

 

Filed Under: Corporate Accountability, Globalization

Montanans Organize to Stop Coal Trains, Exports

September 3, 2001 by staff

Plans by coal corporations could create five-fold increase in train traffic, extensive traffic delays and large increases in noise and air pollution

Note: City Commission Vote! Gallatin Valley residents: come speak or express your opposition to exporting coal through Bozeman and show your support for this proposed city resolution at the Bozeman City Commission meeting on Monday August 13 (time TBD) at City Hall, 121 North Rouse Avenue (old library building). Thanks to all who came out to the July 9 Commission meeting to exporess your views and push this forward.

Please see bottom of this page for information on submitting letters to the editor of Montana daily newspapers and (for Bozeman residents) to City Council members.

Imagine dozens more trains than existing traffic levels passing through your town…every day and night. Trains with 70 or more cars carrying uncovered carloads of crushed coal. Time and money wasted in traffic back-ups of 8 or more minutes every half-hour. More noise pollution. Coal dust pollution. Higher taxes to pay for massive “externalities” created by transnational mining corporations like Arch, Peabody and Cloud Peak. All this so they can extract coal from Montana and Wyoming, transport it to Pacific ports and ship it across the ocean, while creating almost no new Montana jobs.

Citizens of Bozeman, Billings, Livingston and other many other communities in Montana, Oregon and Washington would suffer directly while the planet will endure environmental impacts from burning huge amounts of oil to ship cheap coal to China and other Asian nations, where it can be burned with inadequate pollution controls. Virtually no new jobs or revenues would be created in any Montana communities.

This disturbing picture already is coming into focus. We now see an average of five more trains daily passing through communities on the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe rail line through Montana and into Washington (many through Oregon as well). We believe the harms caused to our communities and the environment as a whole are unacceptable and must be halted through a grassroots uprising.

Perhaps we can learn from the lead of Coal-Free Bellingham, which is pushing to implement the Bellingham Community Bill of Rights. Instead of asking the EPA or Army Corps of Engineers to limit the number of coal trains, reduce the 500 pounds of dust that falls of each rail car, or seek help for traffic problems, their resolution says, “Whereas, the residents of the City of Bellingham possess the inherent and inalienable right to govern their own community…” and goes on to prohibit exportation of coal through their port. The group, working through our allies at the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, also has compiled an informative FAQ (pdf). The people of Bellingham are choosing to act as sovereign citizens, not as subjects. Will we?

Elsewhere, the Seattle City Council unanimously passed a resolution on May 29 opposing the development of coal-export terminals in Washington, while Missoula took the modest step of passing a resolution asking the Army Corps of Engineers to study the health impacts of the proposed expansion of coal trains and export.

Contact info@ReclaimDemocracy.org or call 406-582-1224 to get involved and get contacts in your community. In Bozeman, an inaugural organizing meeting yielded four action groups: public education, state-level policy, developing city ordinances and networking to build alliances with sister communities and organizations. Contact us for the point person in any group of interest to you.

Background Links on the Coal Train/Export Controversy

News

  • Day and Night Trains Through Bozeman (Bozeman Magpie, March 22, 2012)
  • Train Traffic Could Have Ill Effects for Bozeman (Daily Chronicle, April 8, 2012)
  • Coal Backlash (Missoula Independent, April 19, 2012)
  • Rising Coal Exports Have Montana Rail Communities Braced for Worst (The Daily Climate, May 3, 2012)
  • Montana Chamber of Commerce Tells Helena Not to Interfere with Wishes of Coal Corporations (Helena Independent Record, May 24, 2012)
  • Fights Brewing over Massive Coal Exports Plan (Seattle Times, May 27, 2012)
  • Seattle City Council Opposes Coal-export Ports (Associated Press, May 29, 2012)
  • (of related interest) Roots of Rebellion: Why Montana is the Only State to Reject Citizens United

Key Resources and Organizations

  • Coal-Free Bellingham shows how citizens act when they believe corporations are subordinate to democracy with the Bellingham Community Bill of Rights. Why do we support this approach? See Why do we need a local initiative when we have all those environmental laws?
  • Coal Free Northwest is a Sierra Club portal for more information on the struggle in Oregon and Washington.
  • Coal Export Action also provides resources for those working to stop coal trains and exports in the Northwestern U.S.
  • Coal Train Facts is a Washington-based site with anti-coal export information.
  • Montana Rail Link, a subsidiary of Washington Companies, provides a coal facts page from an industry perspective.
  • The Northern Plains Resource Council has a fine collection of information and a more in-depth white paper (pdf).
  • Power Past Coal has many more useful resources.
  • No Coal Eugene is advancing a Community Bill of Rights (draft).

Bozeman, MT Organizing Updates and Resources
(contact us to engage or join local announcement list). See report on inaugural community organizing meeting of May 29.

Speak Up in Print! Express you thoughts in a letter to the editor to one of the Montana newspapers (below) in impacted communities. Reclaim Democracy! created this thorough free primer on writing effective letters to help you (and we’re happy to offer editing assistance).

  • Billings Gazette (250 word limit )
  • Bozeman Chronicle (300 word limit)
  • Daily Inter Lake (Kalispell, 300 word limit)
  • Great Falls Tribune (250 word limit)
  • Helena Independent Record (200 word limit)
  • Livingston Enterprise
  • Missoulian (250 word limit)
  • Montana Standard (Butte, 400 word limit)

Bozeman City Commission

  • Sean Becker, Mayor, sbecker@bozeman.net
  • Jeff Krauss, Deputy Mayor, jkrauss@bozeman.net
  • Carson Taylor, Commissioner, ctaylor@bozeman.net
  • Chris Mehl, Commissioner, cmehl@bozeman.net
  • Cynthia Andrus, Commissioner, candrus@bozeman.net

Filed Under: Activism, Food, Health & Environment, Globalization, Local Groups

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