Like the defective energy policy so eloquently described by Greg Palast in his often- seen article Power Outage Traced to Dim Bulb in White House, President Bush cotinues to exhibit extremely poor judgement, this time in the matters of public health.
Sandra Blakeslee of New York Times writes about the problems of the Mad Cow disease, and how the Bush administration has stood in the way of intelligent government policy. Again, another reason why America desperately needs a better president.
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Expert warned that mad cow was imminent - but Bush administration did not listen
By Sandra Blakeslee, New York Times
Ever since he identified the bizarre brain-destroying proteins that cause mad cow disease, Dr. Stanley Prusiner, a neurologist at the University of California at San Francisco, has worried about whether the meat supply in America is safe.
He spoke over the years of the need to increase testing and safety measures. Then in May, a case of mad cow disease appeared in Canada, and he quickly sought a meeting with Ann M. Veneman, the secretary of agriculture. He was rebuffed, he said in an interview yesterday, until he ran into Karl Rove, senior adviser to President Bush.
So six weeks ago, Dr. Prusiner, who won the 1997 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his work on prions, entered Ms. Veneman's office with a message. "I went to tell her that what happened in Canada was going to happen in the United States," Dr. Prusiner said. "I told her it was just a matter of time."
The department had been willfully blind to the threat, he said. The only reason mad cow disease had not been found here, he said, is that the department's animal inspection agency was testing too few animals. Once more cows are tested, he added, "we'll be able to understand the magnitude of our problem."
READ THE REST OF THE STORY AT:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/25/national/25WARN.html
or
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/article.php?sid=14304&mode=nested&order=0