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GOVERNMENT AND SOCIETY
In a move that has garnered much media attention, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has turned down a beef company’s proposal to test its entire herd for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), better known as mad-cow disease. The USDA controls who can purchase the reagents for BSE tests in the United States. In February, Creekstone Farms, a small beef supplier based in Kansas, requested permission from the USDA to buy one of the test kits to test its entire herd. The agency denied the request two months later, saying that there is no scientific basis for testing young animals
