[QUOTE=smiling bandit]
Aside from which, Brainglutton, let’s not be naive here. Had the Bush administration let this pass, you would have been screaming your head off about how “Bush doesn’t care about foreigners.”
[/QUOTE]
What have foreigners got to do with it?
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
:rolleyes: Even granting the premise for the sake of argument, the nature and level of the panic still makes a difference.
[/QUOTE]
How? A useless test is a useless test. Only if you can show that it’s of some benefit can you start arguing about how much consumer panic would be justified. Otherwise you’re just alarming people for no reason.
[QUOTE=Dead Badger]
How? A useless test is a useless test. Only if you can show that it’s of some benefit can you start arguing about how much consumer panic would be justified. Otherwise you’re just alarming people for no reason.
[/QUOTE]
There would be zero consumer panic, unless you are referring to the response to a validated diagnosis of BSE. Then I would suggest that concern would be merited.
This panic thing is just simply a non-starter.
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
What have foreigners got to do with it?
[/QUOTE]
AFAIK, the purpose of the testing being done is so that certain beef producers can sell to the Japanese market, which currently has a moratorium on American beef over Mad Cow fears. Not to insult, but you have a rather… err, excitiable response to anything the Bush administration has done, not done, or ever considered doing or not doing.
Had they given these companies a pass, you could just as easily (and with more justification) claimed that “Bush simply didn’t cre about selling tainted meat to foreigners” . And I have ample experience to suggest you would have, or would have supported the notion the instant it appeared.
As for the distinction bewteen Western Blotting and Gold Standard, that’s it’s own issue. It’s quite possible that they shoudl use Western Blotting on all cows. But currently it’s not being used and doesn’t seem to be what these companies plan on using.
It’s true the courts did, in fact, decide that the USDA couldn’t prevent them from using the tests. I’ve seen the court’s decision, and I must admit it’s a pretty weak decision. It relies on some very fine legal hair-splitting (did they mean this AND this or thi AND/OR this?), and I can’t agree that the language of the law or prior practice support’s the court’s decision. And even if the it had, it seems clear to me that the current case fits both requirements.
[QUOTE=iamthewalrus(:3=]
That’s based on the premise that the false positives are randomly distributed among tests, which may not be the case. Some false positives aren’t due to a particular test going awry, but are reproducible, and will always be positive for a given individual. If, for example, the test is searching for a particular protein that’s produced by BSE-infected tissue, and a small number of individuals have a (harmless) genetic mutation that produces that protein, then they will always test positive, no matter how many times you run the test. I don’t know how the test for BSE works, but it might be that retesting positives won’t do any good.
[/QUOTE]
In my field we call this dial a yield. You always lose good parts (or good cows.) Assuming the test has false positives of this nature, I’d hope that a quiet investigation of the feedlots is done. If you can’t distinguish a false positive from a real positive, you are dutybound to treat both as real - for the purposes of investigation at least, not going crazy and declaring a crisis.
[QUOTE=Dead Badger]
…and yet the carcass is certified (falsely) as being BSE-free. This is thus misinformation, and dangerous misinformation at that. Are you really happy to have beef marketed as completely safe, when the screening process provides no such guarantee? If so, your contempt for the safety of the consumer, and for the veracity of scientific information, is truly worthy of the great chimp himself.
[/QUOTE]
Mind giving a link to where this company was going to certify the cows as being BSE-free? That’s a lot different than stating the carcasses are 100% tested. I see nothing in the original link stating that this was going to be done (who would do the certifying?) or even that the company planned to market it this way. The concern was if they planned to do this.
Any claim of being BSE free should be fought as misleading advertising, which is different from what the FDA was trying to do. That I would support, but I haven’t seen any evidence it was being done.
The Japanese are kind of odd about things like this, but as someone working during the quality revolution, I heard people think it odd that they wanted electronic components they bought to actually work.
If the test were totally worthless, btw, I don’t see why a 0% sample wouldn’t be adequate.
[QUOTE=Revtim]
“The Agriculture Department regulates the test and argued that widespread testing could lead to a false positive that would harm the meat industry.”
Not knowing much about mad cow or the meat industry in general, can this be a reasonable concern? When they get a positive, can’t further testing then confirm it or show it to be a false positive before there’s any harm? Or is this difficult or impossible for some reason?
[/QUOTE]
Spain has been running 100% testing since the test became available. There’s been a few positives. Never heard anybody say “oh my god, a calf tested positive for mad cow, I’ll go vegetarian chop chop!”
[QUOTE=Voyager]
Any claim of being BSE free should be fought as misleading advertising, which is different from what the FDA was trying to do. That I would support, but I haven’t seen any evidence it was being done.
[/QUOTE]
Possibly, but they might not have jurisdiction. Foriegn markets again.
Again, False positive is not the problem. False negative is.
[QUOTE=smiling bandit]
Again, False positive is not the problem. False negative is.
[/QUOTE]
The implied negative of the current testing effort is as much of a problem or moreso than the one you are concerned about. What do you think the intention, vis a vis the perception of the consumer, is regarding the current screening process?
The Bush administration even wants to cut back on the number of carcasses tested now. If “certification” is the problem, shouldn’t people be told that greater than 99 percent of what they buy right now is certified “Completely Unknown”?
[QUOTE=Dead Badger]
would you at any point care to address the very reasonable arguments that have been put forward to explain why a mass screening programme won’t provide any such assurance?
[/QUOTE]
The merits or demerits of a mass screening program are irrelevant. One company chooses to do 100% testing. Other companies can adopt the same policy, or not, as their managers’ judgment dictates. The government needs to butt out, provided that basic minimum safety criteria have been satisfied.
[QUOTE=smiling bandit]
Again, False positive is not the problem. False negative is.
[/QUOTE]
Why is it worse to falsely label a carcass as disease free, than to market the same carcass without any testing at all? If it in fact has Mad Cow, it is still going into the market place, whether it has been tested or not; how is a false negative more dangerous?
[QUOTE=Fear Itself]
Why is it worse to falsely label a carcass as disease free, than to market the same carcass without any testing at all? If it in fact has Mad Cow, it is still going into the market place, whether it has been tested or not; how is a false negative more dangerous?
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, now I’m damn confused. False positives can be a problem if they induce unjustified panic. False negatives are a problem only in that they cause escapes. It is always better than not testing at all - we can say there are .99 * infection rate false negatives now.
Computer chips,. when tested, have false negatives - but no one has wanted to fix this problem by not testing at all.
Why, sir, that is nothing but rank… deliberate scientific illiteracy and, and and… complete partisan sophistry!