SOUTH OF THE BORDER?

The Salt Lake Tribune connects the dots in yesterday's editorial: If the USDA has been so lax about stopping E.coli-smeared meat from getting to grocers' shelves, why should we trust their assurance that they've stopped Mad Cow? "Meat industry pressure to move product has put profits ahead of safety, silenced Congress and left U.S. Department of Agriculture with less power to enforce its rules than other regulators have over the safety of toys or cosmetics," the Trib notes. Meanwhile, New Scientist Magazine goes one step further: "BSE likely to be in US cattle herds" is the headline on a story not yet available online in which the magazine asserts that Mad Cow has probably already infected some U.S. cattle. There are many ways this might have happened - the most obvious being our NAFTA-decreed open trade borders - but two noteworthy sidebars (which may or may not be related) have to do with the blithe feeding of BSE-infected cows to other animals: CBC says that "Despite assurances that a cow infected with mad cow disease was never eaten by humans, officials said Wednesday it was likely fed to pigs and chickens - which in turn could have been on a dinner table." And to show how intertwined this "One Cow" is with American industry, a Nevada company, Carson's Pet Pantry, asked customers yesterday to return dog food that may contain beef from quarantined herds. Ah, the Circle of Life.