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WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration said Tuesday it will fight to keep meatpackers from testing all their animals for mad cow disease .

Why?

Because it would be too expensive...

The Agriculture Department tests less than 1 percent of slaughtered cows for the disease, which can be fatal to humans who eat tainted beef. But Kansas-based Creekstone Farms Premium Beef wants to test all of its cows.

Larger meat companies feared that move because, if Creekstone tested its meat and advertised it as safe, they might have to perform the expensive test, too.

The Agriculture Department regulates the test and argued that widespread testing could lead to a false positive that would harm the meat industry.

In plain english - if all cows were tested some would turn up positive. And our government would rather have a few mad cows go through then have the meat industry suffer from people buying less meat because they were cautious.

"Our" in this case is clearly not the public, since to this administration income is much more valuable than health and safety.