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Addy
Citizen
Username: Addy
Post Number: 18
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Friday, December 26, 2003 - 4:01 pm: |     |
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/12/26/mad.cow/index.html |
mem
Citizen
Username: Mem
Post Number: 2509
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Friday, December 26, 2003 - 4:25 pm: | |
A human disease related to mad cow is known as variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. It is incurable and was blamed for 143 deaths in Britain, which suffered a mad cow disease outbreak in the 1980s.
Humans can get it by eating meat that contains tissue from infected animals, specifically from the brain and spinal cord.
Mad cow disease, officially known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, has not been found in beef muscle.
Scientists say the disease is found only in nerve tissue, specifically the brain and spinal cord. So experts say beef steaks and roasts are safe, along with hamburger ground from labeled cuts, such as chuck or round. Organ meat such as the liver and tongue also are safe.
Slightly. Meat such as ground beef, hot dogs, taco meat, and luncheon meats are made from several sources of meat. They are obtained by machines, known as advanced meat recovery systems, that strip flesh from the spines and other awkwardly shaped parts of the cow. Some tests have detected tissue from the central nervous system in samples of beef products. However, many meat companies remove the spine and brain before slaughter.
In the case of the cow in Washington, federal and state officials have quarantined the herd on the farm where the animal came from. If tests in England confirm that the cow had BSE, then the herd will be slaughtered to prevent an outbreak. Investigators also are tracing where the meat from the animal was sent.
Beef and cattle imported from countries with BSE are banned. Also, the government has banned since 1997 cattle feed made with protein or bone meal from being fed to other grazing animals — cattle, goats and sheep. Farmers used to feed such meal to their animals because it helped them gain weight.
The cow was a 'downer' animal that was injured when giving birth. The Agriculture Department allows such animals into the food supply if they are not sick. Federal veterinarians check the animals for signs of illness before they are processed.
If an animal is sick, it isn’t allowed to be slaughtered for meat and tests are run to determine what ails it.
Often, downer animals are processed for pet food because their meat is rendered, a process that basically cooks the meat and kills disease.
Mad cow disease is one of a family of illnesses that has only been known to infect animals such as cattle, sheep, elk and deer.
The cow likely was sick from eating feed made from an infected cow, even though that type of feed is banned. If that’s true, other cattle also might be infected and they might have been processed into food for humans by accident. Or they might have been ground into animal feed that could infect other livestock that people could someday eat.
The Food and Drug Administration is working with the Agriculture Department to determine the source of the illness.
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tom
Citizen
Username: Tom
Post Number: 1703
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Friday, December 26, 2003 - 10:07 pm: | |
important to note: cooking does NOT lessen the danger. Unlike your usual food-caused illnesses, this doesn't come from a microorganism, but from a protein. |
wharfrat
Citizen
Username: Wharfrat
Post Number: 891
Registered: 6-2001
| | Posted on Saturday, December 27, 2003 - 7:25 am: | |
Here are two interesting letters in today's NYT-
December 27, 2003
A Mad Cow Warning, Unheeded
To the Editor:
Re "Expert Warned That Mad Cow Was Imminent" (front page, Dec. 25):
When a Nobel Prize-winning scientist cannot get an appointment with the secretary of agriculture to warn her of a dire crisis looming — the likelihood of mad cow disease in the United States because of lax federal inspections — you know we're in trouble.
But we are in even more trouble when it turns out that the only way the scientist, Dr. Stanley Prusiner, got in to see Secretary of Agriculture Ann M. Veneman was at the behest of Karl Rove, the political operative and Bush family factotum.
Clearly, national health crises get to the desks of cabinet secretaries only when Mr. Rove deems them potential threats to Mr. Bush's re-election bid.
Until the Department of Agriculture, Ms. Veneman and President Bush take definitive and aggressive action against this agricultural and health disaster, I (and many, many others) will not purchase beef at a market or restaurant. Period.
ANNE FARRELL
Del Mar, Calif., Dec. 25, 2003
•
To the Editor:
Re "Expert Warned That Mad Cow Was Imminent" (front page, Dec. 25):
A spokesman for Secretary of Agriculture Ann M. Veneman explained that she did not heed Dr. Stanley Prusiner's advice regarding meat inspection because "we want to make sure that our actions are based on the best available science." Just who does Ms. Veneman think can provide better advice than Dr. Prusiner, who won the Nobel Prize for his work related to mad cow disease?
The appallingly low rate of meat inspection is just another example of the Bush administration's pandering to corporate greed at the expense of the public's health and welfare.
KENNETH J. KAHN
Long Beach, N.Y., Dec. 25, 2003
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United Strawberry of America
Citizen
Username: Strawberry
Post Number: 1626
Registered: 10-2001
| | Posted on Saturday, December 27, 2003 - 9:09 am: | |
Wharfrat,
One cow with Mad Cow disease in the U.S. and you want to blame Bush...  
"We won't always have the strongest military"
--Howard Dean
"Most competent and qualified kindergarden teachers can tell you who the 5 kids are in his or her class likely to wind up in prison 15 - 20 years from now."
--Howard Dean
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Dr. Winston O'Boogie
Citizen
Username: Casey
Post Number: 405
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, December 27, 2003 - 10:55 am: | |
It's not Bush's fault. But it is the job of the executive branch to enforce regulation, so it's going to be his administration's responsibility from here forward to decide how to handle this.
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United Strawberry of America
Citizen
Username: Strawberry
Post Number: 1629
Registered: 10-2001
| | Posted on Saturday, December 27, 2003 - 11:15 am: | |
how to handle it??? handle what?
You want Bush officials to kill every friggin cow in the state of Washington?
The dems finally have something!!!! GWB is pro-madcow disease!!!!!!
"We won't always have the strongest military"
--Howard Dean
"Most competent and qualified kindergarden teachers can tell you who the 5 kids are in his or her class likely to wind up in prison 15 - 20 years from now."
--Howard Dean
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Dr. Winston O'Boogie
Citizen
Username: Casey
Post Number: 406
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, December 27, 2003 - 11:58 am: | |
isn't this the responsibility of the USDA? An agency that reports to Bush?
Isn't this a national issue? Or do we want to take the chance that this is isolated only in Washington?
Or should we all just stop eating beef? |
Dr. Winston O'Boogie
Citizen
Username: Casey
Post Number: 407
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, December 27, 2003 - 12:11 pm: | |
I'd also like to add that I feel sorry for you if you can't think of these issues without reducing it to an issue with electoral implications.
I didn't accuse Bush of anything (read up a couple of posts). I'm just saying that it's the executive branch's job, as regulators of interstate commerce (yes it's only in Wash. now, but we need to be sure the disease hasn't been spread wider than that) to respond to this before it becomes a crisis. I'd like to think they'll take the right steps to protect our food supply, don't you? Because when it comes right down to it, regardless of political ideology, nearly all of us eat beef, don't we? |
tom
Citizen
Username: Tom
Post Number: 1706
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Saturday, December 27, 2003 - 10:48 pm: | |
After what the Bush administration fed us about air quality in NYC post-9/11, plus the way the political arm had its way with the global warming paper, as well as the justice departments bowlderized release on minority hiring, why should I have any confidence in what the current USDA has to say about this?
Past experience shows that, whatever the real facts may be, there is a real possibility that the actual release may be strictly for the benefit of the industry, and not the consumers. |
woodstock
Citizen
Username: Woodstock
Post Number: 511
Registered: 9-2002
| | Posted on Saturday, December 27, 2003 - 11:54 pm: | |
Back to the subject... it appears the cow in question came from a herd in Alberta that may have produced a previous MCD-infected cow.
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_world/view/63805/1/.html
Waiting For The Electrician, Or Someone Like Him |
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