[IP] Californians already have "Mad cow disease" secrecy legislation
------ Forwarded Message
From: DV Henkel-Wallace <gumby@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005 11:56:00 -0800
To: <dave@xxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: <Bosley.John@xxxxxxx>
Subject: Californians already have "Mad cow disease" secrecy legislation
> From: "Bosley, John - BLS" <Bosley.John@xxxxxxx>
> Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005 13:52:18 -0500
>
> Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2005 13:43:57 -0800
> From: "D. Richards" <dr961@xxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: BSE secrecy plan
>
> Below is an example of how our government deals with the mad cow
> threat:
>
> Utah House approves sealing records on livestock and disease
The last time BSE-tainted meat entered the food supply (a year ago),
Californians were unable to learn where the meat was sold. The USDA
and the CDA (Calif dept. of Agriculture), like 11 other states, had
signed a non-disclosure agreement. Without that agreement the USDA
_refused_ to provide the state with any information about the tainted
meat. So California officials could identify the store that sold the
meat but were forbidden to reveal the information (although it was
later leaked). The Feds' argument at the time was that the news was
sufficiently old that the meat had surely already been consumed, and so
there was no point in creating panic. If you look at the timeline the
information was old because the USDA had sat on it.
It's not clear to me that the state constitution actually allows state
agents to sign such an agreement, but there you have it.
Ironically, exactly a century ago, Upton Sinclair was hard at work on
"The Jungle," the novel that lead to the food safety and labor safety
laws now being dismantled. The USDA has suffered a classic case of
regulatory capture.
Unfortunately the Mercury news locks its articles away after a week,
but I was able to find documentation on the web at Consumer Report's
site:
http://makeashorterlink.com/?E1D42218A
-d
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