United States
A longstanding issue is whether these animals are treated humanely or inhumanely by shippers, stockyards, and packers while they are being moved or held for slaughter. Legislation periodically is introduced in Congress to outlaw the sale or transfer of such animals, but livestock producer groups (who generally agree that livestock markets should not accept severely disabled animals) have long contended that their voluntary efforts to end harmful practices have already proven successful. The 2002 farm bill (P.L. 107-171, Sec. 10815) required the USDA to investigate and submit a report on nonambulatory livestock, and to issue and enforce regulations, if deemed necessary, to provide for their humane treatment.
Different jurisdictions have different rules about what can be done with a downer cow. In some jurisdictions the cow may be slaughtered without question. In others, downer cattle may not be slaughtered even if the cause is a physical injury. In the United States, meat inspection is usually an interstate commerce issue, and is regulated by the Federal Meat Inspection Act. Now all livestock auction barns are not allowed to take sick or downer cows because of the rulings that originated with the BSE "mad cow" crisis.
Read more about this topic: Downer (animal)
Famous quotes related to united states:
“God knows that any man who would seek the presidency of the United States is a fool for his pains. The burden is all but intolerable, and the things that I have to do are just as much as the human spirit can carry.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“I thought it altogether proper that I should take a brief furlough from official duties at Washington to mingle with you here to-day as a comrade, because every President of the United States must realize that the strength of the Government, its defence in war, the army that is to muster under its banner when our Nation is assailed, is to be found here in the masses of our people.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)
“We now in the United States have more security guards for the rich than we have police services for the poor districts. If you’re looking for personal security, far better to move to the suburbs than to pay taxes in New York.”
—John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)
“I hate to do what everybody else is doing. Why, only last week, on Fifth Avenue and some cross streets, I noticed that every feminine citizen of these United States wore an artificial posy on her coat or gown. I came home and ripped off every one of the really lovely refrigerator blossoms that were sewn on my own bodices.”
—Carolyn Wells (1862–1942)
“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)