Obama ends slaughter of sick cows for meat (another hooray)

[ensho]

http://www.pe.com/localnews/politics/stories/PE_News_Local_S_downer15.277b397.html


President Barack Obama on Saturday announced a long-sought end to the practice of slaughtering sick and hurt cows for meat, answering calls for increased food safety that followed last year's record recall of 143 million pounds of beef from a Chino slaughterhouse.

"As part of our commitment to public health, our Agriculture Department is closing a loophole in the system to ensure that diseased cows don't find their way into the food supply," Obama said during his weekly radio address.

The new regulation is expected to be published this week in the federal register and would take affect 30 days later, said Amanda Eamich, spokeswoman for the Department's Food Safety Inspection Service.

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In addition to the ban, Obama said he plans to spend $1 billion to bolster the ranks of federal food inspectors, a measure pushed by lawmakers during the hearings that followed the recall. It was unclear Saturday whether the inspectors would go to the Food Safety Inspection Service, which is charged with ensuring meat safety, or the Food and Drug Administration, which regulates produce and medicine.

Ultimately, the question could be moot. Vilsack has said he favors a single-agency approach to food safety to lessen confusion surrounding recent scares, including the recall of peanut butter that killed nine people this year.

Obama said Saturday that he would convene a Food Safety Working Group, which could take up the issue.
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and please let them test for mad cow, which they cannot do now because of the criminal neo cons.