Cattle Alert: "N.Y. Times" Already Quoting Cebull's Inaccuracies

By Steve Dittmer
21 March 2005

One of the fears we expressed when Judge Richard Cebull issued his horribly sensational injunction opinion was that the mass media would pick up on it and start quoting his opinion.

It didn't take long for this to happen. The New York Times has already published an editorial, quoting Cebull and indicating they have been sucked into Cebull's and R-CALF's misleading science and unpracticed understanding of international trade. The worst of this is that the Times is making proclamations based on ideology, not science or facts, and their wire service is picked up by hundreds of papers across the country.

The Times editorial ridicules USDA's efforts to establish international trade of under-30-month cattle from countries with minimal risk as, "based on a hope and a wish." It quotes Cebull's regurgitations of R-CALF's claims of "catastrophic damages" and "genuine risk of death," just as if these were facts, instead of sensationalist claims made in a legal brief attempting to scare a judge.

The Times also misreads Japan's evaluation of the situation, claiming as R-CALF does, that opening the border to Canadian cattle under 30-months will automatically cause the Japanese to keep our exports out. Instead, as those involved in the negotiations have pointed out, the opposite is true. Any indication by the U.S. that it does not trust young Canadian cattle creates mistrust and confusion among Japanese government officials and consumers. In fact, the negotiations were going along sedately, bolstered by the fact that Canadian boxed beef was flowing nicely through our system, because everyone knows the beef is safe. That is until R-CALF raised unwarranted questions.

So R-CALF's legal gymnastics have succeeded in throwing a monkey wrench into the Canadian border trade and the Japanese export trade. The "bonuses" are that R-CALF is now the godfather of the Canadian packing industry expansion, has damaged U.S. packers large and small and is the catalyst for the largest and most determined effort Canada has ever made to compete with us in the world market.

Thanks to R-CALF, Canada's biggest nightmare has been prolonged far beyond what was necessary. But in the long-term, R-CALF could have helped propel Canada's beef chain development efforts farther and faster than would have happened in decades without their interference.

The Times claims that Japan is requiring the U.S. to prove it is free of mad cow. We haven't heard that and that is not the issue. The issue is that the beef exported to Japan be free of BSE - and that we can guarantee. Specified Risk Material (SRM) removal, tailored to the age of the animal, is internationally recognized as yielding safe beef, even if by some unlikely chance an animal actually had BSE. The OIE has even stated that it does not recommend against importing beef from countries with a high BSE risk. The SRM removal renders the country's BSE status a moot point.

Yet R-CALF continues to ignore that fact. Instead it is trying to get people to believe SRM removal is ineffective. On top of that, R-CALF wants people to believe Canada is really a high-risk country - another U.K. - and that no one else but R-CALF has figured it out yet.
To prove that the Times has bought into R- CALF's furthest stretches for obstacles to throw in the path of imports, the Times said that the only way to resume international trade is to test all cattle.

Even worse, the Times implies that there is no feed ban in place, by calling for an "end to the feeding practices that can spread mad cow disease." The feed ban was instituted in 1997 but the New York Times is unaware of that fact. But ignorance of the facts does not keep the Times from telling everyone how to solve their problems. Add that to the lawyers and judges already in the mix, and it means science and verified facts get buried even deeper under a growing pile of misinformation, hyperbole and short-sighted obstructionism.

Which is just what American consumers or the beef industry does not need.

The Agribusiness Freedom Foundation promotes free market principles throughout the agricultural food chain. The AFF believes it is possible to value the traditions and heritage of the past while embracing the future and the changes it brings. The AFF is a communications and educational initiative striving to preserve the freedom of the agricultural food chain to operate and innovate in order to continue the success of American agriculture.

The AFF - freedom watchdog for American agriculture.

Agribusiness Freedom Foundation

AFF: Promoting free market principles throughout the agricultural food chain.

Website: http://www.agribusinessfreedom.org

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Cattle Editorial: R-CALF Goes Closer to Edge

by Steve Dittmer
3/10/2005

So how did your paper report the preliminary injunction R-CALF won against USDA's Final Rule on Canada?

• Rancher's Group Opposed to All Imports Wins Injunction in Court
• USDA-Hating Rancher's Group Wins Injunction
• R-CALF Wins Round in Turf War With USDA
• Using Consumers As Pawns in Import War, R-CALF Wins A Round
• R- CALF Throws Everything Up Against the Wall To See What Judge Will Believe
• R-CALF Demonstrates Allegations, Exaggerations and Half-Truths All Is Necessary to File Lawsuit
  

I didn't think so.

Here's what the papers did say:

"A federal judge in Montana granted a livestock group's request to postpone reopening the border to cattle and other beef imports from Canada because of concerns about mad cow disease." R-CALF had claimed "the move would pose a risk to consumers and U.S. cattle producers."
USA Today, 3/3/05, page 3A

The group's [R-CALF's] attorney, Cliff Edwards, said it would be "insane" to import cattle from a country that has reported two cases of mad cow disease this year.
Colorado Springs Gazette, 03/03/05, page A3

"...argued the reopening would expose their cattle - and U.S. consumers - to mad-cow disease, the fatal brain wasting ailment diagnosed in four Canadian-born cattle over the past 22 months."

Wall Street Journal, 3/3/05, page B2, with a "What's News" reference on Page One

Great way to promote your product to consumers in the popular press, eh?
Any mention of "mad cow" in the media is detrimental to the U.S. beef market. It raises a worrisome subject, and in this case, implies to consumers that beef from anywhere outside the U.S. might be suspect and unsafe for them to eat. And it certainly made Canadian beef a subject of controversy. Keep re-visiting this subject and the safety of U.S. beef - handled the same way - will be questioned again.

And that's the good part. If USDA decides not to appeal, or loses the appeal and the case goes to trial, the allegations in R-CALF's lawsuit could end up all over the pages of newspapers everywhere. Neither the pages of the general media nor a court room is the place for discussing the grandstanding collection of lurid exaggerations, unverified and unreplicated claims and tabloid-like attempts to raise doubts and questions about BSE contained in R- CALF's suit

Attorneys are evidently allowed to put just about anything they please in a lawsuit - fact, fiction or near-fiction. And they found a judge, in this case, who appears to have no frame of reference except what R-CALF's lawyers put in their legal brief. Certainly there appears to be no burden of proof as to factual basis for what goes in a legal brief.

So Judge Richard Cebull's opinion, with the following conjectures and fictions, is now part of the record and available to the public press. It would also be a sample of the kind of testimony and argument reported in a trial. Some samples:

"a decision that subjects the entire U.S. beef industry to potentially catastrophic damages and that presents a genuine risk of death for U.S. consumers."
"...it is a virtual certainty that Canadian cattle infected with BSE would be imported into the U.S."
"This causes a potentially catastrophic risk of danger to the beef consumers in the U.S."
"Allowing the import of Canadian cattle into the U.S. increases the potential for human exposure to material containing the agent for BSE in this higher-risk meat."
Referring to the feed ban, "there is no conclusive scientific proof that it is the only route, and it is unknown what other routes of transmission may be available. "
"Plaintiff argues that recent scientific data suggests that BSE prions may be transmitted by blood and perhaps saliva and scientific understanding of transmissibility of BSE is still evolving.
Plaintiff submitted comments that "...it is no longer reasonable to presume that there is no risk of exposure to BSE infectious agents once an SRM removal requirement is in place."
"failure to explain to the public why these benefits do not justify mandatory testing...
"...transmission of BSE from those cattle to animals in the U.S. ..."

Italics in the above bullet items are mine. They are just samples from Cebull's nearly 30-page opinion full of such stuff and the suit filed by R-CALF has more. Every one of the items above is either untrue, based on a false assumption, exaggerated or are all at once. Yet just as the judge cannot tell the difference, neither are all the popular media likely to, either. Remember, most journalists are the liberal arts students who avoided science and economics like the plague in school, and are unlikely to know much about the beef industry.

And just for good measure, the Senate has already chimed in with a resolution chastising USDA. Sen. Kent Conrad (D. N.D.) accused USDA of playing a "game of chance."

The only major media article I saw that went deeper than the scare claims, was one by the Wall Street Journal's Scott Kilman, who has much deeper knowledge of agriculture than the usual newspaper reporter. He also sees the bigger picture better than R-CALF and its attorneys. Lester Aldrich, an ag reporter who follows the industry closely, also chimed in for that article. Such expertise will not be evident at most major media outlets. Wall Street's story noted:

"Judge Cebull's ruling is a blow to the Bush administration's attempt to create a new international standard for doing business with countries that have a low incidence of mad-cow disease..." "Until recently, the U.S., like most nations, simply shut its border to infected countries."

"By accepting cattle younger than 30 months old from Canada, the U.S. government is trying to show such countries as Japan and South Korea it is safe for them to import U.S. beef again."

Wall Street Journal, 3/3/05, page B2

Interestingly, the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), whose recommendations R-CALF erroneously claims the USDA is flouting, filed a brief in the case. David Wilson, the group's head of International Trade, notes that recommendations from OIE are to be used by "veterinary authorities or other competent authorities," when establishing health regulations. "Thus, they aim to avoid the transfer of agents pathogenic for animals or humans, without the imposition of unjustified trade restrictions."

What is the justification for R-CALF trying to set themselves up as "veterinary authorities?" They certainly are attempting unjustified trade restrictions.

The saddest irony of all this is the judge's expressions of concern for consumer confidence in beef, when it is R-CALF and this suit that holds the biggest potential for damaging consumer confidence - - unjustifiably so. While the USDA may not have made every move perfectly over the last two years, it has done an extremely good job of safeguarding consumers, using and weighing the proven science and protecting consumer confidence in the safety of beef.

They should be running the show, not lawyers and judges.


The Agribusiness Freedom Foundation promotes free market principles throughout the agricultural food chain. The AFF believes it is possible to value the traditions and heritage of the past while embracing the future and the changes it brings. The AFF is a communications and educational initiative striving to preserve the freedom of the agricultural food chain to operate and innovate in order to continue the success of American agriculture.

The AFF - freedom watchdog for American agriculture.

Agribusiness Freedom Foundation

AFF: Promoting free market principles throughout the agricultural food chain.

Website: http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=r6nap4aab.0.y9iojb44.tv7p5a44.4876&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.agribusinessfreedom.org

Where’s The Beef

by: Reg Clause, Board Member, Truth About Trade and Technology - Jefferson, IA

Where’s the beef?That’s what American meatpackers have wondered ever since the United States closed its borders to cattle from Canada nearly two years ago. The shutdown was a response to a positive test for mad-cow disease. People who eat contaminated beef may risk contracting a fatal brain disorder known as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

But now USDA investigators have said that Canadian cattle are safe for the American marketplace. On March 7, the border is expected to reopen to Canadian cattle that are no more than two-and-a-half years old.It’s about time. Yet a few people aren’t happy with this development.

Their concerns have nothing to do with public health and everything to do with old-fashioned economic protectionism. They want Canadian cattle kept out because they think it serves their interests to lock out competitors.They refuse to admit their real agenda, of course.

That’s because they know their true motives violate the principles that animate commerce between the United States and Canada. And so they’ve resorted to hype and scaremongering to frighten the American public, in the hopes that lawmakers will force a last-minute delay of the March 7 deadline.

Anybody with a shred of common sense ought to see this tactic as not only fundamentally dishonest, but also a devil’s bargain that almost certainly will come back to haunt American cattlemen.

Japan provides a perfect illustration. In 2003, the Japanese bought $1.7 billion in U.S. beef--more than any other country in the world. But this came to a screeching halt in December of that year, after inspectors found a single case of mad-cow disease in a U.S. herd. Ever since, the Japanese have bought their beef from elsewhere, mainly Australia.

It goes without saying that our beef exports have suffered enormously. Meatpacking companies have scaled back on their production--and many people have found themselves out of work.

Because of this, reopening the beef trade with Japan has been one of our government’s top diplomatic priorities. Whenever American officials meet with their Japanese counterparts, it tops the agenda (along with the vital issue of containing North Korea). We’ve made some progress in recent months, and it looks like Japan may lift its ban soon. Yet there are countervailing pressures, including last month’s first-ever confirmed death resulting from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in Japan. The victim almost certainly contracted the disease when he lived in Great Britain in 1989, but that detail won’t necessarily assuage consumers nervous about any reports linking mad-cow disease to American herds.

What’s more, Japan surely won’t lift its ban if it starts listening to the voices of protectionism inside the United States. If Canadian cattle aren’t good enough for Americans, then why is American beef good enough for the Japanese?Anybody who seeks to refute this logic is trying to have his burger and eat it, too.

Keeping the ban in place could punish Americans in other ways as well. Canadians haven’t exactly been twiddling their thumbs. Instead, they’ve tried to solve their problem by increasing their own ability to process meat. That means they won’t need American processors as much as they once did. “If the border continues to remain closed for too much longer, we will be seeing many more permanent job losses,” in the United States, says Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia.

This isn’t the only way in which Americans may suffer. Citing a little-known provision of NAFTA, one group of Canadian ranchers says the ban is illegal and wants at least $325 million in compensation. They probably won’t get anything near that amount. They may not get anything at all. But if they get something, guess who’s going to pay for it?

Finally, the practice of allowing protectionism to masquerade as a matter of public health complicates many of the trade disputes between the United States and the European Union, such as the huge disagreement over biotech crops. More specifically, there’s the EU’s ban on hormone-injected beef. If we’re going to block Canadian cattle with phony health considerations, we can’t very well continue to argue that the Europeans should abandon their current trade policies, which are no more fraudulent.

Closing the border to Canadian cattle was a responsible decision when it was made. But now its time has passed, and we must begin to recognize what happened as a regulatory success story. After all, an infected cow was detected. It didn’t enter the food supply, and nobody’s health was ever put into question. There’s still more we can do, such as improving our ability to trace individual animals and harmonizing our rules with those in Canada. But our food supply is safe right now, and it will be safe following March 7 as well.

American cattlemen--and I’m one of them--need to understand that they benefit from free trade. We should not be the least bit fearful of our ability to compete with the world. We are tremendously productive and we can go head-to-head against anyone.Are we really that afraid of the Canadians?Reg Clause raises cattle, corn and soybeans on a fourth generation family farm in central Iowa.

READER VIEW: USDA RIGHT TO LIMIT TESTING

THOMAS TOLL Lindsborg
Posted on Wed, Feb. 09, 2005

The Eagle editorial "Beef: Pols behind Creekstone?" (Jan. 24 Opinion) missed the mark on several counts. I am a beef producer and strongly support the U.S. Department of Agriculture's decision not to allow private testing for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), often called mad cow disease.

Granting Creekstone permission to conduct private testing would not guarantee access for beef exports to Japan. International trade agreements are not negotiated by private companies. They are conducted between governments. We have no assurances from Japanese government officials that they would accept our product, even if it were tested. Because this trade dispute is more about politics than science, it seems likely that Japan would find another excuse for not accepting our beef.

I also believe that private BSE testing would result in blanket testing for both the export and domestic markets. Science indicates that testing cattle under 30 months of age does nothing to detect the disease or improve food safety. If tested product unnecessarily became the norm, the costs for this procedure would not be passed on to consumers. It would be another cost of doing business. This cost would not be paid by beef processors. It would be passed back through the system, with my calves being worth $20 less per head as the result.

Finally, The Eagle editorial board's criticism of Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., was off target. There is no greater champion of Kansas beef producers and the beef industry than Sen. Roberts. The editorial neglected to mention that the Kansas Livestock Association and the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, representing mainstream beef producers, oppose private BSE testing.

As an independent cattle producer, I want nothing more than export access to Japan. I also want Creekstone to remain an active buyer of the cattle I produce. But private BSE testing is not the solution for either. Instead, we should work together to establish a world standard for beef trade based on science.

High Stakes Poker... the R-CALF Way

Maybe This Is Montana "Hold'em"

A few months ago, if you had been asked to guess who had made statements like the following to the media, which group would you have guessed was the source?

• U.S. beef is not safe and continually puts consumers at risk.
• Canadian beef is not safe to eat.
• The USDA is not doing its job and is putting consumer's families at risk.
• The USDA Inspected stamp is false "advertising" and is misleading.

Would you have guessed:

a) Ralph Nader's Public Citizen?
b) Carol Tucker Foreman's Consumer Federation of America?
c) PETA?
d) Consumer's Union?
e) A rancher's group?

Six months ago, would you have believed any rancher's group would be making the statements R- CALF has been making? Yet the answer to the above question is e), a rancher's group - R-CALF.

If you thought the over-the-top moves and statements of recent weeks couldn't go much further, you were wrong.

R-CALF has actually issued and called on its members to distribute - I'm not making this up - a "Safety Alert Fact Sheet" to consumers, grocery store managers, butchers, public health officials and elected officials across the U.S. They've already sent it to elected officials and health departments. Why? To make sure consumers believe that Canadian beef can give them BSE. R-CALF's belief is that if they can get consumers panicked about Canadian beef, they can generate pressure on USDA to rescind the Canadian Final Rule due to go into effect March 7. Then, when panicked consumers find out Canadian boxed beef has been entering the country for months, they can protect themselves by not eating any beef in the U.S. at all until mandatory COOL is implemented, according to R-CALF's wishes.

What it boils down to is this: R-CALF is engaged in a high stakes poker game. The stakes are not just R-CALF's $800,000 a year legal affairs budget. They are gambling your money - if you are at all involved anywhere in the beef chain - that they can scare consumers enough to help them achieve their political goals of cutting off beef imports. To them, risking consumer confidence in beef, indeed, risking the future of the whole industry, is a bet they are willing to make, Texas hold'em style, with all their money - and all yours.

They're not only betting everything, they are trying to fill an inside straight. Because they are gambling that if they destroy consumer confidence, if they create a "mad cow" scare and stop the beef market cold, that it will be temporary and they can re-start it later on whenever they want to do so. Such thinking is not only inconceivably, but unbelievably reckless. It is demonstrative of the naiveté of these people who apparently know so little of consumer habits, beef demand and the struggle of the last 30 years to turn this industry around at the consumer level. They evidently imagine that there are magical control valves somewhere to turn demand and consumer confidence in beef safety off and on.

This from the same people who keeping calling for USDA not to announce inconclusive test results on cows because of the depressing effect it has on the market for a few days.
Probably the luckiest thing about this whole debacle is R-CALF's association with Nader's Public Citizen and Carol Tucker Foreman's Consumer Federation of America and Consumer's Union. It's also demonstrating some nasty side effects, although nothing trumps their horribly misguided risk of consumer confidence and misrepresentation of scientific facts for relatively insignificant political goals.

The good thing is that by allying itself with the aforementioned groups, far from achieving the credibility R-CALF wanted, they have branded themselves as one of those groups who scream loudly about danger, imminent risk and threatened consumers. These groups' pronouncements are often, though not always, taken with a large handful of salt by consumers, businesses and sometimes even the gullible, activist, major media outlets. If all the life-threatening crises these alarmists groups claim to have uncovered were real, the entire U.S. population would have to die several times over each year to fulfill their dire predictions.

On the other hand, this kind of shrill tactic means they are taking more leaves out of the consumer activist's notebook given them by PC and CFA, etc. And while grocery store managers will quickly run them out of their stores, union activists may not. These activist groups have union connections and support. Disgruntled inspectors have tried to raise questions about inspection before. Several grocery store chains are negotiating with unions on contracts now. The last thing we need is to be pawns is some union's play for more publicity.

But if they knew the first thing about dealing with real grocery chains, they'd know meat managers hand out nothing that hasn't been cleared with headquarters; nobody stands around handing out "Safety Alert" leaflets in their departments, and grocery chains do not work at damaging the market for the foods they sell. Any CattleWoman who has worked promotions in the meat department can tell you that. As a good friend of mine would opine, "Amateurs, amateurs, amateurs ..."

Only vegetarian, half-hearted organic food marketers like Whole Foods would entertain such a notion. Their CEO has admitted he wished he didn't have to sell meat at all. And their meat department, after all the carrying on about only buying local produce from local producers, hands out brochures on New Zealand grass-fed beef. But I digress.

The bottom line is that if R-CALF fails in its quest to block Canadian cattle imports, they have stated unequivocally that U.S. consumers should avoid eating beef purchased at U.S. grocery stores unless they wish to risk getting "mad cow" disease. If the USDA goes ahead with implementing the Final Rule on March 7 - as they most likely will - any consumer ignorant of the facts who reads R-CALF's Safety Alert sheet, with its inaccurate information and ridiculous scare tactics, would avoid beef totally.

If R-CALF's lawsuit is successful and the border reopening is delayed, another genie's bottle is uncorked. Any number of R-CALF's misleading, exaggerated and inaccurate conjectures in its legal filing could be quoted in the court's ruling, giving more credence and broad media coverage to such scare statements in the general media. And just as many people feel courts should not be making laws; legal briefs throwing everything attorneys can think of against the wall is not the proper and accurate way to establish scientific fact.

And if the curiosity of consumers is aroused and they read R-CALF's other ridiculous statements about beef's supposed continual "health risks to U.S. consumers," disaster could result.

Frankly, I cannot believe there are 12,000 R-CALF members out there who approve of such reckless brinkmanship with their livelihood. If they are concerned about this high stakes poker game with their life on the line, we suggest they get control of their leadership and its attorneys. This is not about turf. This is about survival of an industry.

No one I'm aware of in America is doing more to try to wreck the beef industry than R-CALF is right now. And the local rural communities they claim to be trying to save better be looking at their sheep and wheat hole cards very carefully. They could be the only cards worth anything in the American West if R- CALF gets its way and all beef cards end up in the discard pile.
The Agribusiness Freedom Foundation promotes free market principles throughout the agricultural food chain. The AFF believes it is possible to value the traditions and heritage of the past while embracing the future and the changes it brings. The AFF is a communications and educational initiative striving to preserve the freedom of the agricultural food chain to operate and innovate in order to continue the success of American agriculture.

The AFF - freedom watchdog for American agriculture.
Agribusiness Freedom Foundation
AFF: Promoting free market principles throughout the agricultural food chain.
Website: http://www.agribusinessfreedom.org

Should Red and Processed Meats Be Removed from U.S. Dietary Guidelines? NO (from Family Practice News)

EDITORIAL Publication Date: March 1, 2005

A March 1, 2005 Family Practice News debate about whether to remove red meat from our diets included this "no" argument from ACSH's executive and medical director:

Scary headlines such as "Meat-Eaters Risk Cancer" predictably followed in the wake of the recent JAMA article entitled "Meat consumption and risk of colorectal cancer."

Let's look at what the study data really say -- and what they don't.

The authors -- from the American Cancer Society, Emory University, and the National Cancer Institute -- evaluated nutrition information going back over 20 years, obtained from questionnaires from almost 150,000 people, aged 50-74 years. Study participants gave this information in 1982 and again in 1992-1993, and they were followed until 2001.

The authors' assessment was that people in the highest segment of intake of red and processed meat in the 1992-1993 survey had an increased incidence of distal colon cancer, but this association was lost when other covariables were included in the analysis. (These covariables included smoking, body mass index, energy intake, alcohol use, and physical activity.)

For long-term consumers of large amounts of meat, those who were in the highest segment in both surveys had about a 50% higher risk of distal colon cancer, and they had a 43% increase in risk of rectal cancer.

Those who had higher meat intake in the later survey had a 71% higher risk of incident rectal cancer.

So, how relevant is the study for the American consumer -- is it as worrisome as it seems? I think not because:

The study is retrospective and observational, based on memory of dietary intakes and a questionnaire. These types of analyses are inherently weaker than prospective, controlled studies. The most egregious flaw involves data dredging: Many of the statistical associations lose power when confounders are taken into account.

The sheer quantity of meat consumed by the study patients is another issue subverting the authors' scary conclusions. In men, the amount of red and processed meat eaten by the group with increased risk was about 3 pounds weekly; women ate a bit less. This is far more meat than the federal dietary guidelines recommend, and much more than the large majority of Americans eat weekly.

My analysis: If you make red meat a part of a well-balanced dietary plan (according to the federal government's new Dietary Guidelines for Americans) and don't overindulge, you run no significantly increased risk of colon (or other forms of) cancer. Lean red meat is a high-quality, nutrition-dense food, and it is relatively low in calories.

Although this study may have some validity when restricted to those who indulge in long-term excessive meat consumption, it would be better to advise patients to pay attention to real health threats and not worry too much about eating meat.

Dissident Ranchers On Mad Cows: 'Do As I Say ...'

Last year the Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund (R-CALF), a small group of dissident cattle ranchers, joined assorted mad-cow-disease scaremongers like Ralph Nader's Public Citizen and Consumers Union at a joint press conference to claim that North American beef was "unsafe." When the same group successfully sued the federal government last month, temporarily blocking the U.S. from importing Canadian cattle (again citing mad cow disease as a pretext), naked self-interest and trade protectionism were widely cited as its real motivation. The question was left hanging: Did R-CALF care more about food safety or the profits of its members? We now have the answer.

The Canadian Press (CP) reported yesterday that three U.S. ranchers who were "significant contributors" to R-CALF's litigation fund -- the same money that forced the USDA to keep Canadian cows north of the border -- quietly "bought up cheap cows in Canada after the devastating ban" was reinforced by the court last week.

CP reporter Beth Gorham's story continues:

Some in Canada are furious, saying R-CALF members have exploited a crisis they helped to create. "It's not illegal but their ethics are terrible," said Ontario beef producer John Lunn from Norwood. "I've had enough. I have no use for these guys." Rick Paskal, a feedlot owner in Lethbridge, Alberta, said group members "recognized an opportunity for their own personal economic gain. They were absolutely not concerned about food safety."

We can all savor this irony. While R-CALF continues to argue that lifting the ban on Canadian cattle imports would expose Americans to an unnecessary risk -- the group has even called for the border to be sealed to live cattle for seven years -- its most prominent members appear perfectly willing to embrace that "risk" if it comes attached to a paycheck.