I wrote this a while ago and never published it because I wanted to make it one of those fancy three part blog posts. I think there’s a lot of power in realizing when you are never going to do something and just letting it go.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture yesterday asked U.S. farmers to keep their cloned animals off the market indefinitely even as Food and Drug Administration officials announced that food from cloned livestock is safe to eat. Bruce I. Knight, the USDA’s undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programs, requested an ongoing “voluntary moratorium” to buy time for “an acceptance process” that Knight said consumers in the United States and abroad will need, “given the emotional nature of this issue.”

Yet even as the two agencies sought a unified message — that food from clones is safe for people but perhaps dangerous to U.S. markets and trade relations — evidence surfaced suggesting that Americans and others are probably already eating meat from the offspring of clones. Executives from the nation’s major cattle cloning companies conceded yesterday that they have not been able to keep track of how many offspring of clones have entered the food supply, despite a years-old request by the FDA to keep them off the market pending completion of the agency’s safety report.

FDA: Hey, did you write down that stuff about about the experimental untested food like I asked?
Beef Industry: ohhh duuuuude, I totally forgot. My bad!

Now! from the people who brought you mad cow disease, CLONED MEAT!!!

You seriously have to read this whole article, it’s a fucking riot.
USDA Recommends Food From Clones Stay Off the Market

My favorite part is when the cattle/biotech companies are all “Cloning is just a way to make offspring” it’s like invitro fertilization. wtf, no seriously WTF!?!? Although maybe my favorite part is when the article talks about how the few clones that do survive are plagued with birth defects and abnormally high rates of disease but don’t worry, it’s safe to eat! And besides, we can’t label it because that would just keep people from buying it.

While the future is bright and shiny, it’s just as corrupt on the inside.

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A couple days ago the USDA issued the biggest beef recall in history, 143 million pounds. I’ve seen several articles on this and most of them gloss over a few salient points that I’d like to reiterate here

-This recall goes back two years. Wait, seriously? Yes, that is physically impossible and I’m concerned that there is no one in the media rational enough to collapse in ridicule.

-A two year recall means that most of this meat has already been consumed.

-Downed cattle requirements are in place because of mad cow disease. My understanding is that these regulations as they (ahem) stand right now are seriously inadequate. Also, mad cow disease is seriously under reported because there are strong disincentives for telling the truth.

-Almost universally the articles that I’ve seen completely fail to critically engage the beef industry’s claims about the safety of the food supply. I’ll try my best to paraphrase

Beef Industry: “The government forced us to recall an insanely large amount of meat because it’s been unsafe for two years. We didn’t notice that but trust us, eating meat is 100% safe.”
Journalists: “okay, well, we’ll just repeat your logically incoherent soundbite ad nauseum so that people don’t accidentally get really pissed off about how incompetent and greedy you are.”

-This is a recall spurred on by a video recorded secretly and delivered to the humane society. This didn’t come out because of vigilant regulators. I highly recommend watching the video.