RFD America

How safe is the food you eat? The USDA will tell you it is the safest in the world. Too bad for them that the rest of the world doesn't feel the same way. Taiwan's legislature has officially banned the import of American beef, despite the pitiful pleadings of the USDA and the Office of the United States Trade Representative. Taiwan is concerned that American beef is contaminated with Mad Cow Disease. And they're right.

The technical name for Mad Cow Disease is Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE). In cattle the symptoms are the same as in deer and humans: the complete destruction of the brain, leaving nothing except as massive sponge-like blob. We've all seen the videos of cows in final the stages, stumbling and struggling just to reach death's door. In deer, the condition is called Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD). In humans, it's called Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD). The disease is increasing in bovines and deer. There is growing concern that the disease could also be present in chicken and pork in the United States as well. Not to mention the human population. In an all-out effort to protect the giant American beef industry, the Government proclaims that you can't get CJD from eating meat from an infected animal. But as the cases in Great Britain show, this is as disingenuous as it gets. And now, Taiwan won't let the huge beef producers sell their poisonous wares there. Eat up America.