How now mad cow? Cattlemen wrong to resist animal ID system. Every American who grows livestock, and every human being who eats it, would be better off if the United States Department of Agriculture considered itself a regulatory agency instead of a marketing one. [News Source]

Back to the drawing board. The Bush Administration said it would rework a controversial proposal to broadly reform the way the government assesses risks after an expert panel released a report calling the approach "fundamentally flawed." [News Source]

U.S. wants talks on age limit for beef. U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab called on Japan to start talks later this year aimed at easing its import restrictions on U.S. beef, visiting Japanese farm minister Toshikatsu Matsuoka said Wednesday. [News Source]

U.S. raises pressure to widen beef imports. The U.S. administration, dissatisfied with the small amount of U.S. beef Japan has imported since it lifted its ban on July 27, is stepping up pressure on Japan to ease conditions on imports of American beef. [News Source]

Barring Certain Cattle Material from Medical Products As BSE Safeguard Proposed (Kansas City InfoZine) The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is proposing to limit the materials used in some medical products in order to keep them free of the agent thought to cause mad cow disease, also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy or BSE. [News Source]

Letters to the Editor (Chico Enterprise-Record) It appears as if P. Lemense and Bob Crosby are drinking from the same mad-cow tainted teat. Their willingness to be deluded indicates they have swallowed the Bush bile that collects on the diseased nipple of PNAC doctrine. [News Source]