Mad cow disease expert says precautions may be too late

[truthisfreedom]

http://www.wisinfo.com/thereporter/news/archive/local_13891777.shtml

Mad cow disease expert says precautions may be too late

By Patty Brandl
the reporter [e-mail]

Although the federal government announced last week that it is taking precautions to ensure a safe beef supply, it might be too little too late, says the Madison author of a book on mad cow disease.
“We have not taken this disease seriously,” John C. Stauber, author of “Mad Cow USA,” said in a telephone interview on Friday.
He said three recent tests performed by government agencies on a Washington state cow suspected of carrying the disease all have verified the strain of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) as the same one found in Great Britain in 1997.
Tests conducted by researchers from the Veterinary Laboratories Agency in Weybridge, England, agreed with U.S. preliminary findings that the Holstein had BSE.
“This cow should have never been slaughtered and put in our food system,” Stauber said.
The good news about the 1997 infected beef crisis in Great Britain is that it only killed 130 people, Stauber said. The bad news is that people have been dying from meat they ate 10 years ago.
One of the characteristics of the brain-wasting disease is a dormant period, both in the infected animal and in humans who contracted Creutzfeldt-Jacob Disease, which researchers believe is connected to BSE, the author said.
<snip>
Stauber said government reports have indicated that the infectious protein or prion is only found in the brain tissue or spine of an infected animal, but other studies point to nerves and blood vessels as another potential source of contamination in the meat supply.
The BSE incubation period in cattle is anywhere from three to eight years.
“For this 4-year-old animal (in Washington state) to develop this disease, it would have had to ingest the prion as a calf,” he said. “This cow consumed feed in the United States that was probably contaminated with rendered cattle byproducts.”
And an easy path of transmission, according to the Madison author, would have been through the dried raw cattle blood protein that’s not only legal to include in animal feed in the United States, but is commonly used as a protein source in certain calf supplements.
“Farmers around here are stunned when they find out their calf feed contains cattle blood,” he said.
Stauber said some analysts believed early in 1997 that without an effective feed ban in place in this country, just one case of BSE could cause another 299,000 cases over the next 11 years.

<snip>

[JailForBush]

1. Oh oh...

I eat very little meat, but a little isn't little enough if it contains those PRIONS.

Oh, well, if a Mad Cow Disease epidemic is a done deal, let's hope it happens before next November. It would be one Hell of a bummer to see George Bush steal the White House again, then get diagnosed with Mad Cow a couple weeks later!

[WhereIsMyFreedom]

2. I have only one thing to say to this

Mad cow disease expert says precautions may be too late

Well, DUH!

[cliss]

3. Where there's smoke, there's fire.

It's pretty obvious to me that we are just beginning to see the filth and rancor which surrounds the beef industry. I've read plenty of threads on what's going on, and I think that at this point, I'm amazed that more people haven't died from related illnesses.

It's quite a testament to humans' ability to survive eating stuff like this for many years, and first now when this horrible practice of feeding cows dead animal protein.

Just imagine actually using "downed animals" as the bottom of the food chain, meaning for pet food, frozen cheap pizza and canned soup.

I recommend that everyone should stop eating meat immediately, and stick with substitute meat products until they sort everything out.

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. We have and switched to organic milk

Our Pet Conure eats what I cook, so she does not get any of this
crap they call pet food

She is a happy bird too... and her feathers are far more shiny than
those of parrots eating candy all the time (seeds)

[murielm99]

8. Have you read Fast Food Nation?

The book is not just an indictment of the fast food industry -- it discusses the meatpacking plants, with their filth, overworked and underpaid employees, their basic lawlessness.

People are dying from this stuff already, and it is only going to get worse. I think I am going to buy only organically grown beef from now on.

[qb]

12. This is an excellent book

I checked out the audio set from my library. We can thank McDonalds and the other fast food giants for pressuring slaughter houses to cut costs by running at breakneck speeds and feeding diseased meat to their animals. Once they got slaughterhouse conditions to their filthiest, they successfully lobbied for deregulation.

[silverlib]

16. Senator Phil Graham's wife

Somewhere in "Fast Food Nation" there is a reference to retired Senator Phil Graham's wife sitting on the board of director's for one of the nation's largest beef industries. I gave my copy to an interested high school student.

[qb]

13. An interesting point from "Genome" by Matt Ridley

According to the author, people who get CJD have an altered gene. Some only get it when they eat infected meat, others get it spontaneously. This probably explains why the human infection rate isn't higher.

[R Hickey]

4. Now that Bush has sounded the 'All Clear' will the export market return?

Japan isn't going to start buying our beef again until every US-slaughtered cow is tested the same way the Japanese test their own. That testing will never happen with Carl Rove in the White House. So the cattle exporting market isn't comming back, ever.

Maybe the White House will arrange for the excess beef to be bought up at taxpayer expense, and Bush can give it to the world's poor.

Our slaughter-houses can grind-up the cattle and sprey those cow-brains onto our much-boycotted, Genetically-Modified rice and corn. Food which even the starving, AIDS-ravaged Africans have refused to take until now.

So the plan will be to export our tainted meat to the very same starving African nations who refuse to buy our GM grains, and can't afford to buy our drug oligarchy's overpriced AIDS cures.

In the State of the Union speech, Bush will give an altimatum to Robert Mugawi of Zimbabwai: "For each pre-packaged USDA-choice cheeze-burger one of your citizens eats... served on our patented, Genetically-Modified seseme-seed bun, we'll donate one free AIDS pill."

Our Burger-King type corporations can then open a string of "fast-food/pharmacies" across the Sarengetii plain, and include the AIDS-pills in little condement containers, with each cheezeburger purchase.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

9. awesome post

:nuke:

[cliss]

15. I second it.

Awesome post.

[truthisfreedom]

5. the thing that scares me the most about it is this:

The good news about the 1997 infected beef crisis in Great Britain is that it only killed 130 people, Stauber said. The bad news is that people have been dying from meat they ate 10 years ago.

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. The good news if you can put it this way

is that this is EXTREMELY RARE in humans

The bad news is hitting this lottery

Now there is a form of CJD in humans that is spontaneous and
is confused wiht Alzheimers, the reason why they made the connection
were the younger people who got it as well

[KalicoKitty]

10. Secretary of Agriculture

Veneman received warning six Weeks BEFORE mad cow discovery.

Ever since he identified the cause of mad cow disease, Dr. Stanley Prusiner has worried about whether the meat supply in America is safe.

In May, a case of mad cow disease appeared in Canada, and he quickly sought a meeting with Ann M. Veneman, the secretary of agriculture.

He was rebuffed, he said in an interview yesterday, until he ran into Karl Rove.

So six weeks ago, Dr. Prusiner, who won the 1997 Nobel Prize in Medicine, entered Veneman's office with a message.

“I went to tell her that what happened in Canada was going to
happen in the United States. I told her it was just a matter of time.”

The department had been willfully blind to the threat, he said... Veneman's response (he said she did not share his sense of urgency) left him frustrated. That frustration soared this week after a cow in Washington State was tentatively found to have the disease. If the nation had increased testing and inspections, meat from that cow might never have entered the food chain, he said.



http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/25/national/25WARN.html

[noonwitch]

11. As a Michiganian, I'm with Michael Moore's philosophy

I'm hoping that the PBB I injested in the 70s via beef and dairy products will kill any potential Mad Cow virus in any meat I've consumed in the last few years.

[RebelOne]

14. I am soooo glad I became a vegetarian 7 years ago.

Now I just have to wean myself off dairy products and anything containing gelatin.

[Nile]

17. Give up cheese??

No way dude.