quote:The DNA tests, conducted at laboratories in the U.S. and Canada on the tissue of the infected Mabton, Wash., Holstein dairy cow and her Canadian sire, permits the Bush administration to declare that the U.S. still hasn't had a case of mad-cow disease in native-born cattle.
quote:...a nation that finds mad-cow disease in imported cattle can still keep its status as "provisionally free" of the disease if it has a mad-cow prevention strategy and destroys any suspect cattle. Canada, for example, was able to continue exporting beef and cattle in 1993 when it diagnosed the disease in a bovine born in the United Kingdom.
But the U.S. situation is unique in the eyes of many of the 43 nations that banned U.S. beef imports after the U.S. mad-cow discovery, which was announced on Dec. 23. The U.S. and Canadian cattle industries are so entwined -- swapping millions of head of cattle in recent years -- that U.S. beef is directly exposed to what is clearly a growing mad-cow problem in Canada, which now has two confirmed cases in Canadian-born cattle. In May, Canada reported its first case of mad-cow disease in a native cow.
If the US can't convince the Asian markets that our cattle is safe we could be facing a very serious economic crises in agriculture. Bush is taking steps to make sure the cattle is safe but Japan says they "fall short"; and he refuses to do wide-spread testing given the small risk. I think he's right on a purley practical point, but if this means our meat's not getting shipped, that could be a far more serious thing than wide-spread testing.
(In case anyone was wondering, bovine spongiform encephalopathy is the technical name for mad cow, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob is the name of the disease when it infects humans).
posted
I think mad cow is already widespread in the US but I also don't believe the average human automatically gets it from every exposure. Few pathogens are 100% infectious. Variant CJD is in the US, usually called "early onset Alzheimer's".
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posted
Interesting that "the US can't afford" to test more than a disappearingly miniscule portion of its cattle: EU tests 1 in 4.
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posted
I was up in Canada for Christmas and I heard a lot of talk about how hard the Canadian beef industry has been hit by the BSE scare. They're having serious export problems, and I could easily see this happening to us as well.
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posted
It's more a case of 'what ya don't know can't hurt ya' or rather can't hurt short-term profits, Hobbes. In the time since MadCows was first discovered, the number of meat inspectors has been reduced by 2/3rds.
While there have been a few cases of contracted spongiform encephalitus in the US, only one is from MadCows; and that one in an American who had been living in the UK before returning to the US. Also the only one diagnosed as Variant CJD. It is strongly believed that the others were contracted by eating Elk, and less often deer. Except for extremely early initial possible diagnosis, none were labeled as or mistaken for "early onset Alzheimers".
posted
Actually, I'm worried about that as well. There was a woman here at work who was upset about the widespread panic about mad cow fueling the decision to kill approximately 400 cows/calves. I really don't think she's recognized the potential economic troubles that beef and perhaps even dairy farmers (like her husband) could face if other countries stop U.S. beef/dairy/cattle imports like many have with England and Canada.
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quote:There was a woman here at work who was upset about the widespread panic about mad cow fueling the decision to kill approximately 400 cows/calves
Well, I kinda have to agree with her on that point -- those 400 that were killed were not even tested (not even after being killed) -- there wasn't a lot of sense to that particular mass slaughter other than to appease public panic. There was nothing to say they were really any more at risk than any other cattle.
I have nothing against them slaughtering cattle to test them, and to see if they can determine how widespread the problem is, or even if it IS widespread. But they did none of that in that particular case -- it was just a waste.
posted
Wouldn't have done much good to test "those 400 that were killed were not even tested": the calves were too young to have built up a detectable concentration of prions.
I'll try to find a more recent and less biased source, but the numbers dropped from 10,000 in 1979 to 6,250 in very early 1996, while the meat processing line speed doubled to tripled. The rest of the meat inspection slots have been reduced between 1996 and now.
quote: Wouldn't have done much good to test "those 400 that were killed were not even tested", the calves were too young to have built up a detectable concentration of prions
Yes, that's right. I guess that was my point exactly -- so what was the purpose of killing them?
posted
Remember that the UK hemmed and hawwed about MadCows for so long that it essentially had to nearly destroy its cattle industry by the time it took action. It's cheaper to kill a few hundred than kill a few million.
And in terms of both domestic and export marketing, it's a LOT cheaper&more-effective to "overkill" a few hundred calves in a "see, we're taking MadCows seriously" than to fund an reassuring advertising campaign. Especially considering that the governments of the export markets are being pressured by their own cattle raisers to limit imports to ensure greater profits for growers.
posted
Your source is not that biased -- and pretty much on the mark, according to the numbers I can find.
This USDA site points to a shortage of inspectors, and mentions "Recruiting and hiring 80 more inspectors by the end of the fiscal year to achieve a target employment level of 7530"
By the sounds of the job, it probably isn't very popular.
posted
By 'biased' I meant that the reporter's own leanings are rather obvious -- ie the reporter might choose figures to support their argument -- not that the figures are necessarily wrong.
I'm not sure that the USDA figures aren't more misleading: "7530 by the end of 1999" reads like the total numbers for allfood inspectors; of which, meat inspectors would make up only a minority.
My approximation is from memories of readings in larger newspapers/magazines like NYTimes, LATimes, WashingtonPost, ScienceWeekly, ScientificAmerican, Time, Newsweek, USWorld&News, etc. I'll try to find something more reliable when I can remember better keywords for a search.
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posted
If Americans actually ate the brain and spinal tissues of cows, I could see that there would be a concern of BSE, but since it isn't a normally consumed part of the beef, I don't see what all the uproar is about. It is a media based panic that is causing all this. Beef Check-off has been doing a good job dealing with this crisis, but stupidity still reigns.
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posted
Viroids scare me. Viruses are on the borderline of life... these things are like 10 times less living than a virus.
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posted
I'm glad you linked to that, aspectre. That has been big news (the Creekstone Farms) thing here in Kansas -- and for the life of me, I don't know what the government is thinking!
Creekstone Farms is offering to WILLINGLY test 100% of all their own processed cattle in order to re-capture the Japanese beef market and allow export. Yet the government says "No, you can't do that!" Huh? Since when can government tell a company it can't have a HIGHER standard than required by law?
I really, really, don't understand this ruling by the FDA. Especially since Creekstone is willing to foot the entire testing bill themselves..
posted
That makes no sense Farmgirl ( shakes head).
Maybe they know people would rather buy meant from sucha responsible company than the government sponsered big agri-business?
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posted
Maybe the reasoning (if you can call it that) is that allowing farmers to test their own cattle opens up the possibility that they'll actually find something.
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posted
Every time I see this thread title I think it says "Mancow" and I wonder why we're discussion idiot shock jocks on Chicago radio...
Posts: 4515 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
More MadCows in Washington state. Meanwhile from the chief mad cow in WashingtonDC, "I don't anticipate problems with our trading partners. They'll want to know what the issues are and what we have done. We want to assure them, and to assure the public, that what we are doing here is transparent."
posted
Well, I'm glad Creekstone Farms won that case, because I didn't like the government telling private industry they couldn't do their own testing at their own expense. It made no sense to me, and Creekstone shouldn't have had to fight so hard.
However, I feel like a lot of this (refusal to buy American Beef) is just the Asian market finding excuses. One Creekstone farm shipment last year, fully tested here -- in Japan they found one tiny bone fragment in ONE piece they inspected, and they refused the entire massive shipment on the ship. (Tiny bone fragments are allowed here, but apparently not in Japan).
Again, to me, that was just such a waste of meat, when there are so many people in the world needing food...
quote:Originally posted by Puppy: Wait, why would the government want to prevent people from testing for a disease?
Just to offer a small theory on such a question, but I would make sucha wild guess that if smaller intitutions that could stand to make a profit from such testing by expanding their market make such a thing standard within their own private domains, it could lead to an eventuality where individuals are demanding it become a mandated standard among all within the public domain for that industry. As slippery a theory as that may admittedly be, it is realistic in terms of becoming a concern to agencies such as the FDA.
Posts: 1170 | Registered: Jan 2003
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quote: Wait, why would the government want to prevent people from testing for a disease?
Well, from the articles that aspectre linked to:
quote:The Agriculture Department argued that widespread testing could lead to a false positive that would harm the meat industry.
quote:Larger meat companies feared that move because if Creekstone tested its meat and advertised it as safe, they could be forced to do the expensive test, too.
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