hey, if you like meat, go ahead and eat it. but it might not be the best idea out there...

To get my bias out of the way: I'm vegetarian. I was never a huge fan of meat, and I don't miss eating it at all. But I know plenty of people enjoy it; it's a decision that each individual makes.

With that out of the way, two articles from today's Inquirer:

"Federal lawmakers yesterday introduced legislation to strengthen the nation's food-safety laws." The de jure need for this legislation is unclear; Elsa Murano, undersecretary for food safety said the legislation "would not give the [USDA] any tools to improve safety that we don't already have." And the American Meat Institute (there's an unbiased source) agrees, saying the USDA has the power to enforce food safety laws. The facts, however, indicate otherwise. The CDC reports that each year there are 76 million illnesses and 5,000 deaths from food contamination. Last year meat companies recalled a record amount of tainted meat. As has already seen in both environmental and fiscal terms, corporate self-policing just doesn't work. On numerous occasions, the USDA has been prevented from shutting down plants that are known to produce unsafe meat.

Mad cow disease has appeared in Canada. This doesn't mean that the disease has somehow been transmitted from UK cattle; spongiform encephalopathies can and do arise from spontaneous mutations. The problem arrives when the tissue from infected animals is consumed by other animals (including humans). It's postulated that the dramatic spread of BSE in the UK occurred because slaughtered, infected livestock were processed into feed that was consequently fed to other livestock. Back in 1997, the U.S. and Canada made it illegal to produce feed for cattle, sheep, and goats that contained meat or bone meal. Up in Alberta, where the infected cow was found, they're adamant that the slaughtered animal did not re-enter the food chain. Coupled with a belief that the cow had pneumonia, the testing of a sample of this cow was delayed for four months as it wasn't considered an urgent case. The problem is this: in the U.S., cows that appear to have pneumonia are regularly declared fit for human consumption.

This isn't too suggest that an epidemic of Mad Cow Disease is suddenly going to break out in the U.S. Even in the UK, there were "only" 73 deaths by 2000. But you have to ask yourself, do you want to be the one who gets sick?