Pat's Note: This really illustrates perfectly the damage that
Britain's corrupt State Veterinary Service has done to the world.

It is obvious to an outsider that most animal disease is travelling
the world in live movements. 

Britain seems to make a hobby of moving live amimals in out and round
about for the enrichment of the veterinary industry.

So, when they get trouble, which they do, and of ever increasing
seriousness, they lie, lie and lie again. 

They went too far in covering up the spread of disease in pigs and
trying to attribute the resulting chaos to imaginary illegal infected
imports.

The trouble was, bumbling incompetents that they are, they and their
camp followers did not know their stuff and went too far leaving a
trail of evidence of falsification,  fabrication and intimidation
behind them.

So now they are too terrified to test the pigs for fear they will be
held responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of humans, here
there, everywhere.

They will be. They might as well get on and test the pigs and tell us
the worst.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/health/chi-madcow23jul23,0,6081378.story

Audit says USDA lost track of imported cattle
Canada has reported 13 cases of mad cow

By Stephen J. Hedges | Washington Bureau 
2:07 AM CDT, July 23, 2008 
WASHINGTON - Despite persistent fears of mad cow disease in Canadian
beef, the Department of Agriculture has failed to properly track
hundreds of Canadian cattle coming into the United States, the
department's inspector general has concluded.

An audit, completed in March but only recently made public, said that
some of the imported cattle did not have proper identification or
health records despite federal regulations requiring them.

The audit did not say how many cattle were improperly brought into the
U.S. and inspector general spokesman Paul Feeney said auditors are not
sure of that number. The report said that a lack of records meant that
"it cannot be determined" whether shipments other than those
discovered "have bypassed inspection or whether this is a systemic
problem."

About 1 million cattle were imported into the U.S. from Canada in the
fiscal year ending in September 2006, the period covered by the audit.

Related links
Where did this beef come from? The audit mainly faulted Agriculture's
Animal Plant Health Inspection Service for failing to properly check
records as the cattle crossed the Canadian border.

"APHIS does not adequately track live animal imports and, if problems
are detected, does not collectively analyze import violations," the
report said. "Additional controls are needed at northern
ports-of-entry to obtain stronger assurance that all animal shipments
are inspected."

Mad cow, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, is a disease that
attacks a cow's nervous system. Medical researchers also believe that
humans who eat meat infected with BSE can contract a variant of
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, which is fatal.

When mad cow was first discovered in Canada in 2003, the USDA cut off
all Canadian cattle imports, as did many other countries.

But despite years of precautions, Canada continues to discover cases
in which cows have BSE. In June, Canada discovered its 13th BSE case.

The U.S. also discovered a case of mad cow in late 2003. It was found
in a Washington state dairy cow that had been imported from Canada.
Two more U.S. cases of the disease have since been confirmed — one
Texas-bred cow and one in Alabama whose origin is not known.

The American beef industry also suffered a financial setback after
many countries banned U.S. beef.

The USDA began testing suspect cattle in 2004, and about 400,000
cattle a year were tested. But in 2006 top USDA officials argued that
the risk of mad cow disease was minimal, and testing was scaled back
to about 40,000 head a year. About 97 million head of cattle are in
the U.S.

In 2005, the Agriculture Department began to allow imports of Canadian
cattle, which are cheaper than U.S. cattle, in part because so many
countries prohibited importing Canadian beef.

There were import restrictions, though. The USDA first allowed only
Canadian cattle younger than 30 months old, since mad cow is believed
to fully afflict only older cattle.

But in November the department also began to allow older cattle,
arguing that no new mad cow cases have been discovered in the U.S.
since 2006 and that safeguards were in place to minimize the risk.

Karen Eggert, an APHIS spokeswoman, said the audit covered a period in
2006, before older cattle were allowed into the U.S. She also said the
agency has adhered strictly to a rule adopted in December 2004 that
dictates strict conditions for the import of Canadian cattle.

Those conditions include health and identification procedures, sealed
trucks, permanent markings on cattle and restrictions on their
movement once in the U.S.

Eggert said that her agency disagrees with some of the audit's
findings but that "other recommendations have provided us with sound
ideas."

In one instance, the audit concluded, 211 cattle entered the U.S.
without proper identification or health records.

In another, auditors found that 161 "animal shipments gained
unauthorized entry into the United States during [fiscal years] 2005
and 2006." A typical cattle shipment contains about 60 animals.

The audit also found that 436 cattle and 9,000 hogs were sent to the
U.S. for slaughter, but that their slaughter could not be verified.

Critics of the Agriculture Department's mad cow policies said the
audit bolsters their call to ban imports. A cattle producers group,
R-Calf USA, sued the agency over the rule that allows older cattle
from Canada into the U.S. In a partial victory, a federal judge in
South Dakota on July 3 ordered the agency to reconsider that rule.

R-Calf USA Chief Executive Bill Bullard said the audit is proof the
USDA can't regulate the cross-border cattle trade.

"We know that Canada has an ongoing disease problem," Bullard said.
"These rules that recently relaxed our import restrictions should be
reversed until the agency can demonstrate that it has the capacity and
the will to carry out its congressional mandate to protect consumers
and the cattle producers against the introduction of disease."


-- 
Regards
Pat Gardiner
Release the results of testing British pigs for MRSA and C.Diff now!
www.go-self-sufficient.com