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2006年4月8日(土)「しんぶん赤旗」
http://www.jcp.or.jp/akahata/aik4/2006-04-08/2006040802_03_0.html
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【ワシントン＝山崎伸治】六日付の米紙ニューヨーク・タイムズはＢＳＥ（牛海綿状脳症）問題で、米農務省に対し肉牛の全頭検査を実施するよう求める社説を掲載しました。
社説は、米農務省が毎年国内で食肉処理される肉牛三千五百万頭の約１％しか検査せず、「統計を元に１％の検査で十分だと考えている」ことについて「われわれはそう思わない」と指摘。同省が「若い牛でＢＳＥを発見することは困難なので、全頭検査を行っても食品の安全を保証することにはならない」と主張し、自発的な全頭検査を行おうとした食肉会社に待ったをかけたことを「ばかげている」と批判しています。
食肉会社が個別に検査をしても問題の解決にはならないとして、「農務省が食肉処理されるすべての牛を検査すべきだ」と主張。問題は検査にかかる費用ではなく「恐怖感」だと指摘し、「広範な検査をやれば、ＢＳＥ発症率が高くなり、消費者の信頼を損ない、食肉市場に打撃となるかもしれない」ということを恐れていては、「現状に甘んずることになる」と論じています。
Stop: Don't Test Those Cows!
New York Times (NY) , Late Edition - Final ed , p24 , Thursday , April 6, 2006
Late last month, Creekstone Farms, a Kansas-based beef company, sued the United States Department of Agriculture. The reason? Creekstone wants to use tests for mad cow disease on all of the cattle it slaughters, and the U.S.D.A. won't let it.
In contrast, the U.S.D.A.'s testing program for mad cow disease tests only high-risk cattle -- those that die on the farm, can't walk or are obviously sick. In other words, the department tests about 1 percent of the 35 million cattle that are slaughtered in this country every year. It believes, based on its statistical models, that testing 1 percent is plenty. We disagree.
Why would the U.S.D.A. stop a cattle company from voluntarily meeting a higher standard than the one required by law? The very idea sounds counterintuitive. But then so does the agency's rationale. The U.S.D.A. argues that 100 percent testing would not guarantee food safety because mad cow disease can be hard to detect in younger cattle -- the very cows that a premium beef company like Creekstone is most likely to slaughter.
To us, this sounds like nonsense -- as if we were more likely to be safe by following a testing plan based on statistical modeling of the beef supply than by actually testing all the cattle.
We agree that private testing is not the way to go in the long run. It wouldn't make much sense to have a national system made up of a few large producers that tested all their cattle while only 1 percent of everyone else's were tested. But there is a simple solution for that.
The U.S.D.A. should test every cow that goes to slaughter. The cost is not prohibitive. Fear is the problem. The current testing program for mad cow disease is intended to produce, at best, a snapshot of the likelihood of the disease. The program rests on assumptions that reflect, as assumptions tend to do, only what we know already, and we do not know nearly enough about mad cow disease.
The fear is that broad testing may reveal a higher rate of infection and destroy consumer confidence, with a devastating impact on the cattle market. Which leaves us where we are now: relying on what we don't know to make us feel safe.
Copyright (c) 2006 The New York Times. All rights reserved.
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