You may have seen this on Boston Legal last night. The story was all true, EXCEPT for the outcome!

Source: http://www.organicconsumers.org/madcow/lawsuit060326.cfm

Government Refusal to Let Kansas Meatpacker Test Cows for Mad Cow Disease Spurs Lawsuit

Web Note: The USDA obviously doesn't want the private sector to start
testing for Mad Cow Disease in the USA, because they know the disease is
here, and it is spreading. Japan and Europe require testing for all cows at
slaughter (all cows 24 months and older in Japan, all cows 30 months and
older in EU).

Meatpacker Sparks Mad Cow Testing Fight
WASHINGTON, Mar. 22, 2006

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(AP) A Kansas meatpacker has sparked an industry fight by proposing testing all the company's cattle for mad cow disease.

Creekstone Farms Premium Beef wants to look for the disease in every animal it processes. The Agriculture Department has said no. Creekstone says it intends to sue the department.

"Our customers, particularly our Asian customers, have requested it over and over again," chief executive John Stewart said in an interview Wednesday. "We feel strongly that if customers are asking for tested beef, we should be allowed to provide that."

Creekstone planned a news conference Thursday in Washington to discuss the lawsuit.

The department and larger meat companies oppose comprehensive testing, saying it cannot assure food safety. Testing rarely detects the disease in younger animals, the source of most meat.

"There isn't any nation in the world that requires 100 percent testing," department spokesman Ed Loyd said Wednesday.

Larger companies worry that Japanese buyers would insist on costly testing and that a suspect result might scare consumers away from eating beef.

Japan was the most lucrative foreign market for American beef until the first U.S. case of mad cow disease prompted a ban in 2003. The ban cost Creekstone nearly one-third of its sales and led the company to slash production and lay off about 150 people, Stewart said.

When Japan reopened its market late last year, Creekstone resumed shipments. Japan has halted shipments again, after finding American veal cuts with backbone. These cuts are eaten in the U.S. but are banned in Japan.

Stewart said that when trade resumes with Japan, Creekstone is in a position to rehire the laid-off workers and then some.

Creekstone would need government certification for its plan to test each animal at its Arkansas City, Kan., plant. The department refused the license request in 2004.

The U.S. has been testing around 1 percent of the 35 million head of cattle slaughtered each year, although officials have been planning to scale back that level of testing.

While individual companies in Japan may want comprehensive testing, Japan's government is not asking for it.

Japan does have lingering questions about the shipment of prohibited veal, even after the U.S. sent a lengthy report to Tokyo explaining the mistake was an isolated incident. The report blamed the company, Brooklyn-based Atlantic Veal & Lamb, and a government inspector for misunderstanding new rules for selling beef to Japan.

Japan's agriculture minister, Shoichi Nakagawa, said Wednesday that further talks are needed.

"We do want to keep going back and forth with the U.S. over this issue," he said. "We want the U.S. side to squarely answer our questions."

The U.S. has had three cases of mad cow disease. The first appeared in December 2003 in a Washington state cow that had been imported from Canada. The second was confirmed last June in a Texas-born cow, and the third was confirmed last week in an Alabama cow.

Japan has had two dozen cases of BSE.

Mad cow disease is a brain-wasting ailment known medically as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE. In people, eating meat products contaminated with BSE is linked to more than 150 deaths worldwide, mostly in Britain, from a deadly human nerve disorder, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease.

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On the Net:

Creekstone Farms: www.creekstonefarmspremiumbeef.com/

Agriculture Department: www.usda.gov

Lawsuit Against USDA Blocking Universal Testing of Cattle for Mad Cow Disease Continues

• USDA Lawyers Seek Delay In BSE-Testing Lawsuit
  CattleNetwork.com Stanley, Kansas, 8/25/06
  Straight to the Source
  
  

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--Even U.S. Department of Agriculture lawyers need a vacation and that's why the department is asking a U.S. district court to delay proceedings in a lawsuit seeking to end the government's ban on private cattle testing for mad-cow disease.

Meat packer Creekstone Farms Premium Beef LLC, the plaintiff, would prefer to avoid any delays, but has agreed not to oppose the time extension USDA is asking for, a company official said.

Joe Meng, a Creekstone vice president, said Thursday, "We'd sure like to move this thing as quickly as we can, but it looks like everything's going to be delayed a month."

The USDA's response to a motion for summary judgment requested by Creekstone is due to the judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Friday, but the USDA wants to push that deadline back until Sept. 22. Judge James Robertson has not agreed to the request yet, but Creekstone is not opposing it, Meng said.

The USDA says it won't be able to meet the current Aug. 25 deadline because some of its lawyers with "personal knowledge of many of the facts and information involved in this case" are on vacation.

Creekstone announced its intentions in 2004 to test its own cattle for mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, in an effort to win back Japanese buyers who were banning all U.S. beef. At the time, Japan was demanding the U.S. test all cattle for BSE before it would resume beef imports. The USDA said no to Creekstone, claiming control of the distribution of the kits needed for the tests, and rebuffed Japan's testing demands.

Japan began importing U.S. beef again in December 2005 without the testing it had previously demanded, but tight restrictions were placed on imports, limiting beef purchases to product from cattle 20 months old or younger.

There is still plenty of trepidation over U.S. beef in Japan, though, Meng said, and Creekstone would benefit from adding the extra testing that the company believes foreign consumers want.

"It's an opportunity to add value to the product," Meng said.

The USDA maintains that all U.S. beef is safe and testing is only a surveillance tool. Meng agreed that U.S. beef is safe, but also stressed that as a company they want to cater to their customers.

"That's how you build business," he said. "You satisfy the consumer."

Creekstone filed suit against the USDA on March 23, 2006, in an effort to do the testing.

The USDA has announced the discovery of three BSE-infected cattle in the U.S.

The first discovery, made in December 2003 in a cow in Washington state, prompted Japan, South Korea and many other countries to ban U.S. beef.

Japan -- once the largest foreign market for U.S. beef -- eased its ban in December 2005, but then reinstated it about a month later after a U.S. exporter shipped prohibited bovine material. Japan again began importing U.S. beef in July.

Source: Bill Tomson; Dow Jones Newswires;