October 5, 2006

Creekstone emerging as the stronger side in lawsuit against USDA

The case for mad cow testing proposed by Creekstone Farms is getting stronger by the day and legal experts are saying the company may even succeed in forcing USDA to allow private testing for mad cow disease, a prohibition the US agency had long held.

Creekstone, a mid-sized beef processing company, had previously sued the USDA for not allowing individual plants to conduct mad cow testing. USDA responded to the lawsuit in Sep 22 and Creeksone has until Oct 16 to reply.

Creekstone released a statement last Wednesday (Sep 27) rebutting the key arguments in USDA's response.

The statement has prompted experts in legal circles to say that Creekstone does indeed have a strong case against USDA.

USDA had argued that Creekstone was not harmed by the prohibition on voluntary testing. To that, Creekstone said it had lost customers and revenue due to the ban. Creekstone had previously maintained that the Japanese and South Korean ban on US beef would have ended sooner if USDA had allowed individual testing. 

USDA also argued that the law provides it with the legal authority to ban private private testing. Creekstone refuted the argument, saying is based on a law passed to help USDA stop con artists from selling bogus hog cholera serum to pig farmers. The law did not provide USDA with power to decide on the use of diagnostic test kits even if it is liberally interpreted, Creekstone said.

USDA had also said that one of its primary reasons for denying Creekstone the right to test is to prevent other beef producers from being obliged to do testing themselves, thereby incurring increased costs.

Creekstone says this meant that the USDA is interfering with the market and preventing fair and open competition, which it had no authority to do.

While USDA claims that Creekstone's lawsuit is no longer relevant since Japan, US beef's biggest customer previously and the one most concerned about mad cow, has reopened its market.

However, Creekstone maintained its revenue was hit as Japanese customers would have bought more if its beef had been tested. The company backed the charge by saying numerous surveys had confirmed that fact.