Pointless slaughter or necessary work? Alta deer cull aimed at wasting disease (The Canadian Press via Yahoo! Canada News) DILLBERRY LAKE, Alta. - Sightless eyes from severed heads of dead deer stare out through plastic bags in the back of a pickup truck. A bloody stench hangs in the air around a small cluster of trailers. [News Source]

California joins Arizona, other states in international cattle trade dispute (BizJournals) California is the latest of several border states to enter an international dispute surrounding cattle trade. [News Source]

FSIS acts on US meat scares (Nutraingredients.com) The recall followed an investigation by the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service ( FSIS ), after video-evidence from the Humane Society of the United States showed slaughter house workers forcing crippled cattle onto their feet and into the food chain. [News Source]

Health Highlights: March 14, 2008 (HealthDay via Yahoo! News) Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by editors of HealthDay: [News Source]

Meat: An ugly reality show. So it's official: Downers - cows too sick to stand, the ones at highest risk for mad cow disease - were indeed getting into the food supply and being fed to our nation's children in the school lunch program. [News Source]

Authorities: Deer along SW state border are healthy. Sixty-three deer have turned up negative for chronic wasting disease, in a testing project conducted last month in southern Red Willow County and northern Kansas. [News Source]

Too little testing for mad cow, critics say. After the country's first mad cow case was found in 2003, the federal government ramped up testing cattle for the fatal disease. [News Source]

USDA vows to reimburse recalled beef costs. The nation's schools will be reimbursed for costs associated with the largest beef recall in U.S. history, but it's not clear where the money will come from, federal officials said Thursday. [News Source]

Risky cattle use needs tough penalty - US lawmakers. A bipartisan team of senators introduced legislation on Thursday to impose tougher penalties, including the permanent closure, for companies that process disabled cattle at risk of carrying food-borne diseases. [News Source]

Two humans tested for mad-cow illness. Federal medical authorities will determine only "in coming months" whether two recent deaths in the Saguenay region attributed to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease can be pinned to the rare variant linked with mad-cow disease. [News Source]