USDA follows don't ask, don't tell policy with mad cow disease

The USDA wants to exempt young cattle from any mad cow disease testing whatsoever, and they think the cutoff age should be 30 months. But mad cow disease has been found in cattle as young as 21 months, and in Europe, three cows under 30 months of age have been diagnosed with mad cow disease in the last three years. But the USDA insists that mad cow disease simply cannot exist in cattle younger than 30 months due to its incubation time.

I have an alternate explanation: the USDA is simply protecting the cattle industry from anything that might increase costs. The health of the public be damned: the United States doesn't want to test cows because it is afraid that testing might reveal the mad cow disease problem to be even more widespread than previously feared. And that, of course, would harm the sales of red meat even further. Put another way, the USDA is now following a "don't ask, don't tell" policy for mad cow disease.