Creekstone Farms Premium Beef in Kansas wanted to start testing all its meat for Mad Cow disease (currently only 1% of our meat is tested for the incurable disease that lays waste to the human brain), but the Bush administration stopped them because larger meat packing firms feared that if Creekstone Farms Premium Beef succeeded in getting better sales because they were advertising they were testing all their meat, then they would have to follow suit and start doing expensive tests themselves… in other words the meat packing industry feared the open market and asked the Bush administration. (Story.)
Since McCain is a twin of Bush, I would expect more of the same from him.
US beef (and a range of other meat) is already banned in many countries outside the US (even China refuses to let our meat in), I think this will just solidify their ban. (The EEC bans US beef do to the hormone treatments most US meat growers give their cows to speed the growth process.) I guess we can chalk up another reason to move to New Zealand as fast as possible, safer food.
Anyhow, I find it amazing that the Bush administration would actually take steps to block the free market from allowing proven safer beef from reaching the market, especially when the company was going to pay for it itself.