Really good commentary on agweb beefblog
No rules are bad rules
3/26/2007
Steve Cornett
“The only permanent rule in Calvinball is that you can’t play it the same way twice.”
Calvinball, you’ll remember, was the game Calvin and Hobbes played, wherein you make up the rules as you go—with an eye toward gaining an advantage. The absurdity is obvious, but it is precisely the “gotcha” game Korea and Japan are playing with the “game” of U.S. beef imports—and the game folks like Max Thornsberry, R-Calf’s new president, wants to apply to Canada.
The time to establish rules for a game—or a cattle deal or a trade agreement—is before the game starts. Before you sign the dotted line. That’s when you can iron out wrinkles, make your tradeoffs. If the rules are incongruous, you don’t really have a deal.
It is a mistake the U.S. made back before our first case of BSE was found. Had we seen through our panic, we would have known that control measures are—if not perfect—adequate. We can rest assured that the measures we have in place will prevent an epidemic of BSE among our cattle, much less a significant threat to human health.
We should have argued for OIE rules with that in mind. BSE should not constitute the kiss of death for beef exports that it seems to constitute today. U.S. beef, bone-in or not, is not a significant threat to consumers in Korea or Japan. But because there were not common-sense rules established before the game started, we’ve got a form of Calvinball going.
It’s too late to go back now, but it’s not too late to inject common sense into our own trade policies.
Yes. There is some BSE in Canada. They have found 10 cases. But there were more than 600 murders in that country last year, and nobody is suggesting we don’t allow any Canadians into this country because one of them might be a murderer.
If we start imposing rules like that, how many countries would allow U.S. citizens in? We had 16 THOUSAND murders last year.
It takes common sense, this getting along with other people. The OIE rules don’t offer 100% protection against BSE ever happening. We can’t, with current science, achieve 100% certainty. The trick is to establish rules that offer a reasonable amount of protection. The OIE rules do that.
Let us put this Canadian thing into context. Even Paul Brown, the most-cited expert at the Centers for Disease Control— and who has been critical of USDA’s testing procedures—the risk of catching the human form of BSE from a serving of beef during the height of Britain’s outbreak—with 185,000 cases of BSE in cows--was less than one in 10 billion.
I don’t do big number math, but if you do, you can tell me maybe, 185,000 is to a one in 10 billion risk as 10 is to what kind of risk? It’s a chance I reckon I’d take, and one almost all consumers are willing to take.
The scare is over, folks. We’re down to Calvinball now.
Canadian cows are not the risk Dr. Thornsberry pretends them to be. Consumers know it. Cattlemen should too.
No rules are bad rules
3/26/2007
Steve Cornett
“The only permanent rule in Calvinball is that you can’t play it the same way twice.”
Calvinball, you’ll remember, was the game Calvin and Hobbes played, wherein you make up the rules as you go—with an eye toward gaining an advantage. The absurdity is obvious, but it is precisely the “gotcha” game Korea and Japan are playing with the “game” of U.S. beef imports—and the game folks like Max Thornsberry, R-Calf’s new president, wants to apply to Canada.
The time to establish rules for a game—or a cattle deal or a trade agreement—is before the game starts. Before you sign the dotted line. That’s when you can iron out wrinkles, make your tradeoffs. If the rules are incongruous, you don’t really have a deal.
It is a mistake the U.S. made back before our first case of BSE was found. Had we seen through our panic, we would have known that control measures are—if not perfect—adequate. We can rest assured that the measures we have in place will prevent an epidemic of BSE among our cattle, much less a significant threat to human health.
We should have argued for OIE rules with that in mind. BSE should not constitute the kiss of death for beef exports that it seems to constitute today. U.S. beef, bone-in or not, is not a significant threat to consumers in Korea or Japan. But because there were not common-sense rules established before the game started, we’ve got a form of Calvinball going.
It’s too late to go back now, but it’s not too late to inject common sense into our own trade policies.
Yes. There is some BSE in Canada. They have found 10 cases. But there were more than 600 murders in that country last year, and nobody is suggesting we don’t allow any Canadians into this country because one of them might be a murderer.
If we start imposing rules like that, how many countries would allow U.S. citizens in? We had 16 THOUSAND murders last year.
It takes common sense, this getting along with other people. The OIE rules don’t offer 100% protection against BSE ever happening. We can’t, with current science, achieve 100% certainty. The trick is to establish rules that offer a reasonable amount of protection. The OIE rules do that.
Let us put this Canadian thing into context. Even Paul Brown, the most-cited expert at the Centers for Disease Control— and who has been critical of USDA’s testing procedures—the risk of catching the human form of BSE from a serving of beef during the height of Britain’s outbreak—with 185,000 cases of BSE in cows--was less than one in 10 billion.
I don’t do big number math, but if you do, you can tell me maybe, 185,000 is to a one in 10 billion risk as 10 is to what kind of risk? It’s a chance I reckon I’d take, and one almost all consumers are willing to take.
The scare is over, folks. We’re down to Calvinball now.
Canadian cows are not the risk Dr. Thornsberry pretends them to be. Consumers know it. Cattlemen should too.
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