Budget Cuts and BSE

According to New Scientist(pg 5, Feb 19 2005), the Bush Adminstration's budget proposal for the next fiscal year will reduce the amount of cattle tested for BSE each year from 220,000 to 40,000: more than an 80% cut. What I have to ask is: Why? What possible sense does that make? With BSE being found in Canada, it seems like the risk of BSE is increasing, not decreasing? So why cut it?

At the bottom line, it's all very well to talk about tax cuts, but this is what it means. Important, life-saving programs cut while pork-barreling and private subsidies remain.

Meanwhile, don't eat any hamburgers in the USA for the next few years, unless you feel like becoming a human vegetable.