You guys should get educated, the problem is not with the trade department.
The problem is with the health inspector.
The problem was with Brazil, not allowing proper health inspections of beef production and live cattle in Brazil.
Read this
http://www.accessexcellence.com/WN/NM/madcow96.html
This disease in believed to be occuring because of the practice of grinding up unprocessed parts of the cattle, at the slaughtering plant, and essentially feeding it back to them. Changing the cattle from a herbivore to an omnivore and a cannibal also.
I am not saying Brazil is doing this, or not. We know that the disease is passed on to humans, through tainted beef.
It would be in Brazil?s interest to not cloud it with a ?trade? issue, and allow the inspections, before other countries impose a beef import ban also, don?t you think?
Just in case you were wondering why the disease was passed from sheep to cattle, it is believed to have happened because the sheep carcass and the cattle carcasses, were "recycled" in the same machine, meaning that the cattle were eating sheep and cattle remains combined
Makes you hungry for a nice big juicy hamburger right now, doesn't it?
Thinking of becoming a vegetarian? Think again, while non organic farms use pesticides, the high priced 'organic' producers use good old fashioned methods of fertilizing... which is, guess what?
Animal waste (cow, pig, sheep, turkey, etc etc, manure)
Nice, eh? Lotsa nice bacteria on those organic carrots isn't there?
It's interesting, no one has died from eating too much pesticide, but lotsa people have died from eating the wrong kind of bacteria.
[This message has been edited by Rip (edited 02-10-2001).]