By
Charles AbbottWASHINGTON
(Reuters) - The Agriculture Department
is within bounds to bar meatpackers
from testing slaughter cattle for mad
cow disease, a U.S. Court of Appeals
panel said in a 2-1 ruling on Friday.
Creekstone Farms Premium Beef LLC,
a small Arkansas packer, filed suit on
March 23, 2006, to gain access to
mad-cow test kits. It said it wanted
to test every animal at its plant to
assure foreign buyers that the meat
was safe to eat.
Three U.S. cases of mad cow
disease, a fatal neurological
infection, have been reported, the
last in March 2006. People can
contract a human version of the
disease by eating infected meats. Most
nations banned U.S. beef after the
first case, in December 2003, but
trade has been restored for the most
part.
In a 25-page ruling, Appellate
Judges Karen Henderson and Judith
Rogers said USDA has authority under
the 1913 Virus-Serum-Toxin Act to
prevent sale of mad-cow test kits to
meatpackers. USDA interprets the law
to control products for "prevention,
diagnosis, management or care of
diseases of animals."
David Sentelle, chief judge of the
District of Columbia appeals circuit,
dissented from the decision. He said
USDA "exceeds the bounds of
reasonableness" for a law enacted to
prevent the sale of ineffective animal
medicine.
USDA allows the mad-cow test kits
to be sold only to laboratories that
it approves. It says the tests should
not be used as a marketing tool and
the cattle that comprise the bulk of
the meat supply are too young to be
tested reliably.
Two large export markets, Japan and
South Korea, accept beef only from
younger U.S. cattle. Mad cow is found
mostly in older cattle. Its incubation
period is two to eight years.
Creekstone said it lost $200,000 a
day due to reduced U.S. beef exports
when it filed its lawsuit.
In its lawsuit, Creekstone argued
the 1913 law could not be invoked to
prevent use of products like "rapid
test" kits for mad cow disease and the
kits were not a "treatment" for
livestock.
U.S. District Judge James Robinson
had ruled in March 2007 that USDA
could not control mad cow tests
because they are not a treatment for
animals.
The United States applies a number
of safeguards against mad cow,
formally named bovine spongiform
encephalopathy. They include a ban on
using cattle parts in feed and
requirements for packers to remove at
slaughter the materials most likely to
carry the mad-cow agent -- the brain,
spinal column and nervous system
tissue.
(Editing by Walter Bagley)
