Government Blocks Mad Cow Testing

This is the kind of story that just shouldn't be, but in these days it doesn't even elicit a roll of the eyes.

Here's the AP version of the story:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Bush administration can prohibit meat packers from testing their animals for mad cow disease, a federal appeals court said Friday.

The dispute pits the Agriculture Department, which tests about 1 percent of cows for the potentially deadly disease, against a Kansas meat packer that wants to test all its animals.

Larger meat packers opposed such testing. If Creekstone Farms Premium Beef began advertising that its cows have all been tested, other companies fear they too will have to conduct the expensive tests.

So this little company in Arkansas wants to produce quality beef, they'd like to be able to tell their customers it's not going to kill them. They want to test their beef for disease and the federal government won't let them!

You tell me how this represents the conservative principles of small governments and a free marketplace.

In fact, if you were to believe in the power of the free market, you would see that a small company like this can have the positive effect of forcing quality up. That last paragraph says what will happen. If Creekstone offers guaranteed un-sick beef, then the big companies will have to test, too. Consumers benefit as the market stabilizes around a safer product. It sounds to me like it comes right out of the book. If a big company doesn't want to test, they can produce cheaper meat and pass the savings to the consumer -- you can save money by buying the cheaper beef, at the risk of catching a disease that turns your brain into a sponge, your choice.

This is as pure an example as you will find of the Bush administration putting citizens at risk in order to protect the interests of big business. This is not free enterprise, it is not small government, this is greed, pure and simple, dangerous greed.