Mad Cow Disease Again

During last summer’s mad cow disease scare, it seemed like the USDA’s biggest priority was to reimburse cattle ranchers for their financial losses after a few sniveling wusses stopped buying beef. Now the mad cow scare is rearing its head again. The meat and poultry inspectors’ union has told the USDA that body parts known as “specified risk materials” were getting into the production chain. This includes the brains, skulls, spinal cords and lower intestines of cattle more than 30 months old. (Mmm! Cheeseburger, anyone?)

The union also told the USDA that some of their inspectors were told “not to intervene” when they saw the body parts of older cattle mixed in with those of younger animals. (This violates a lot of U.S. trade agreements, as well as jeopardizing public health.) It’s apparently the job of packing plant supervisors and veterinary officers, and not the federal inspectors, to make sure that older body parts are kept off the production line. USDA spokesman Steven Cohen said "The inspector’s role is to look for disease. If an online inspector feels as though something is not being done they should talk to their supervisors."

Well, that certainly is an important distinction. Imagine, a public health threat being averted by the wrong person – a federal inspector instead of a plant supervisor?! All hell would break loose! If you’re a fireman and you see a building burning, you will of course fill out all the proper forms in triplicate and notify all of your supervisors (using the proper chain of command) before attempting anything stupid or impulsive like trying to put out the fire.

I don’t know what could be a greater threat to this country than an uppity inspector trying to prevent mad cow disease, even though it’s “not his job.” The only thing worse might be those subversive FDA scientists who jeopardize the pharmaceutical industry’s profits by checking the safety of new drugs before approving them. Why do these pinkos hate America so much?