Bush* has stepped into the (Mad) Cow pie!

[mediaman007]

This mad cow thing will cripple the beef industry. Exports will stop, grocery sales will decline, as well as a noticable decline at restaurants. This will strike home with the consumer, even more than the "War on Terrorism."

The Bush* adiministration had almost 18 months to deal with the problem. They sat on their hands. If you think the domestic polls are low now, give this thing a week. People will want to know why the FDA and the Department of Agriculture did nothing to prevent animal waste from getting into the food chain of our countries beef. This is all about corporate power in our government. The beef industry put profit over our nation's health.

To top it off, we have been harassing Canadian ranchers about Mad Cow for a couple of years. They still can't ship beef to America. Well American agriculture is going to feel the pinch now.

Looks like a "free market" bonanza for Argentina and Brazil!

Tuesday's speech will not be so important now, IMHO.

[Mojambo]

1. It will certainly give Ed Schultz something to talk about all week. n/t

[Desert Liberal]

2. I missed this story (there is really so much happening now!) Do you

happen to have a link on this story? And BTW, BushCo never cared about real Americans (only the richest ones who give NOTHING to their nation) anyway. Isn't this just another proof of that?

[mediaman007]

3. Here's the link about the failure to take action...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8258584/

[ThumperDumper]

4. Wow! Congrats to...

MSNBC for not watering down the story.

I just GOTTA shoot over to FOX News to see how THEY watered it down! : )

.

[ThumperDumper]

6. Yup... Can I call 'em or can I call 'em!

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,160648,00.html

"An internationally recognized laboratory in Weybridge, England, confirmed the case after U.S. tests produced conflicting results, Johanns said. The animal had been tested last year and cleared of having the brain-wasting illness."

and...

"I am encouraged that our interlocking safeguards are working exactly as intended," Johanns said at a news conference. "This animal was blocked from entering the food supply because of the firewalls we have in place. Americans have every reason to continue to be confident in the safety of our beef."

"U.S. officials escalated testing for the disease after the first U.S. case. More than 388,000 dead cattle have been screened in the past 18 months, compared with about 2,000 screenings annually before then."

[mediaman007]

8. Looks like massive screening doesn't help, if they don't catch anything!

This too: the cow that has the disease was cleared in one of the tests. How many others did they let through?

I'm on to pork and turkey. Maybe I'll just have to do a little vegetarian over the Fourth!

No burgers, no beef.

[FreedomAngel82]

12. This isn't good at all

:(

[XemaSab]

14. You think pork and turkey aren't

totally disgusting?

You owe it to yourself to become educated about what you eat.

[Desert Liberal]

18. Yes, it's all bad. Too many hormones, harmful feeding and housing

procedures. It's disgusting. I don't eat red meat anymore. Mostly fish and some seafood. But I can't eat too much of those things due to mercury contamination. It's damn near impossible even to eat just veggies and not put something nasty in your body. It's really quite scary.

[XemaSab]

23. It's a fact

Something that you could definitely develop a sort of Howard Hughes complex over.

Have you read "the botany of desire"?

Terrific book, but the part about potato farming really got to me.

[Desert Liberal]

26. No, I haven't

I've been looking for a few books on the food supply. I'll start with this one. Thanks!

[XemaSab]

28. It's not all about food

just a part of it, but it's a really good read. Lots of info in a mellow, non-technical, entertaining format.

The author, Michael Pollan, terms Johnny Appleseed "the American Dionysus." Dude, I wanna be the American Dionysus too!

[left hand man]

30. you want to see something really bad? LOOK at veal

[XemaSab]

31. I've seen veal

thanks, and I really don't care to look at it again.

I went past the Auschwitz (sp) of veal back in January. I was in a carload of people going down the road in Kings Cty (BFE) and there was this HUGE lot FULL of row after row of crates and I was the only person who knew what they were. Nobody else even noticed them. I bet there were 2,000 calves in this lot. It was really awful.

[Nothing Without Hope]

50. Yes, this industry is extremely cruel. If more people knew what was

involved in the preparation of veal, a lot less of it would be proudly served to guests in Suburbia. It's don't ask/don't tell. I've had a lot of people try to tell me that all that doesn't happen any more, that the calves have happy lives. Incredible!

[XemaSab]

51. Frankly,

virtually every food item we eat is don't ask/don't tell, all the way from veal (which I don't eat) to strawberries to corn to fish.

[Nothing Without Hope]

52. Too true. The salmon- and shrimp-farming industries are disastrous.

Black pepper often comes from cleared forest lands. And on and on.

I am a lot more demanding about knowing the origins and history of my foodstuffs than I used to be, and I am definitely trending toward 100% vegetarian. The vegetarian cuisines of other nations make it very satisfying indeed. Lots of glass jars with dals in my basement these days, and I go through lots of veggies. I'm lucky to be in an area where reliable sources of vegetarian ingredients are easily available.

[XemaSab]

53. I'm vegetarian

in a community where veggie food isn't impossible to find, but there's not a lot of variety. I am allergic to tomatoes, which blows, so I wind up eating too much sugar, which is bad for the environment, like everything else.

[Maru Kitteh]

39. Three excellent books on the food supply

Fast Food Nation. by Eric Schlosser

Slaughterhouse: The Shocking Story of Greed, Neglect, and Inhumane Treatment Inside the U.S. Meat Industry
by Gail A. Eisnitz

The Food Revolution: How Your Diet Can Help Save Your Life and Our World
by John Robbins

OK.......... four
MAD COWBOY: Plain Truth from the Cattle Rancher Who Won't Eat Meat by Howard F. Lyman

[BrklynLiberal]

55. I saw Lyman at a Farm Sanctuary screening of "A Moveable Feast"

about the incredible cruelty of Factory Farming. It was horrifying. There were parts that I could not watch, and had to turn my head away.

For an incredible amoutn of information about factory farming and what is going on with our food supply check out

http://www.farmsanctuary.org/

[Desert Liberal]

57. Thank you so much for the recommendations

I've been a bit leery of delving into this. The few things I already know about the food industry make me want to move out into the wilderness and live off the land!

[left hand man]

29. I agree- BOTH are products of factory farming-- beef is safer than ether

[XemaSab]

32. It's sad but true

I think beef cattle are treated the best out of all our farm animals.

[bear425]

36. ok, nevermind.

[MADem]

41. In a bitter irony, why should we assume that massive screening

does any good at AIRPORTS either, for that matter???

Guess that is the way they handle problems--with screening!!! Mental health screening for kids, airport screening for travellers, and mad cow screening for our bovine dinners!

It's all a smoke and mirrors game with these clowns, but it could not have happened at a worse time, what with barbecue season in full swing...

[paula777]

7. The first line should get people to stop eating cows

WASHINGTON - American cattle are eating chicken litter, cattle blood and restaurant leftovers that could help transmit mad cow disease

DISGUSTING! F the farmers for feeding cows such garbage- that's a choice they are making. Farmers are being LAZY and now their going to pay for it.

[FreedomAngel82]

13. They're not the only one's

[Hekate]

42. Meat byproduct "supplements" were developed to bulk up cattle quickly

It wasn't laziness that started this, it was science. Really. The US in the 20th century began to be able to feed millions of people more protein more cheaply than any time in human history. Look at the size of us! Americans are about the biggest people on the planet -- and that was two generations before the obesity epidemic set in. In their countries of origin the Japanese, French, Mexicans -- all of different ethnic gene pools -- are all a lot smaller on average. It's not just the growth hormones in our food supply, it's the cheap abundant animal protein that we scarf down.

Having said that, I'm very distressed that a century after major food-supply contamination scandals in the US, we now once again have a contaminated food chain. A number of years ago the LA Times published a huge article about beef in its Food section, and what I read there shocked me and changed my purchasing habits immediately. I no longer buy ground meat.

Regional meat processing plants are so huge that a single pound package of raw hamburger may contain meat from as many as 200 different cattle. That's why a small outbreak of sickness from e-coli causes the dumping of millions of pounds of raw hamburger meat: there's no way to separate the dirty meat from the processing stream, once it's in.

Meat processing is so efficient, and has been for decades, that every last scrap is mechanically taken off the bones, and that's how the spinal cord ends up with the rest of the meat -- the brain and spinal cord, of course, are where most of the concentrations of prions that cause BSE are. Prions are not exactly "alive" and they can't be rendered harmless by heat. I finally gave up on beef less than a year ago, when I figured out that, as in everything else, Bushco is lying to us about this.

Most of our chickens are kept in such dirty and yet over-medicated conditions that the home cook must now assume that raw chicken carries salmonella. Hens can have salmonella in their oviducts, so raw eggs must also be presumed to be contaminated. After I prepare chicken or turkey for baking I spray down the counters and sink with bleach solution and send the cutting board through the dishwasher. Home made eggnog is a thing of the past for me, as are meringues and soft-boiled eggs. No more raw cookie dough, no licking the cake batter off the beaters.

I'm reluctant to go fully vegetarian, for a variety of reasons. I could happily cook with and live on eggs and dairy products, and tofu is no stranger to me. My husband really would like to be a vegetarian, but he has colitis and every time he lets himself get talked into a big meal at some friend's great new restaurant find, it just rips him up. Not everyone has the physiology for it.

Laziness does come in to the picture at this point, after all. Our government and food industry know very well what the problems are, what causes them, and how to fix them. We have laws on the books, but too few inspectors and too few laboratories. We've let agribusiness be the fox that watches the henhouse -- and the cattle yard.

It really is disgusting and it did not have to come to this.

Hekate

[stray cat]

5. Brain degeneration at the Dept of Agriculture - David Shuster

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5445086/

"Since this is the time of year when so many of us head to barbecues, I want to alert you to a story you need to know. Our federal government is putting all of us at risk of mad cow disease. And the incompetence and erratic approach of the Department of Agriculture has become so bizarre that one begins to wonder if some officials at that agency are deliberately trying to get fired.

First, a refresher: Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy or BSE is an infectious disease in cattle that causes their brains to degenerate. Animals with the disease will often stagger and become hopelessly agitated before they die, thus the name “mad cow.” The disease is usually fatal to people who eat infected beef. And since the proteins that cause the disease can survive temperatures hot enough to melt lead... turning a hamburger into a hockey puck (while killing off other potential problems) will not make BSE meat safe to eat.

Did I mention that American scientists are tracking a mysterious spike in the U.S. of the human form of BSE, known as Creutzfeldt Jakob disease?"

[rodeodance]

9. Mark McClellan,--thought I had this is Scotty's brother. Is this true?

from msnbc story:

.....“Today we are bolstering our BSE firewalls to protect the public,” Mark McClellan, then-FDA commissioner, said on Jan. 26, 2004. FDA said it would ban blood, poultry litter and restaurant plate waste from cattle feed and require feed mills to use separate equipment to make cattle feed. Chicken litter is ground cover for the birds that absorbs manure, spilled feed and feathers.

However, last July, the FDA scrapped those restrictions. McClellan’s replacement, Lester Crawford, said an international team of experts assembled by the Agriculture Department was calling for even stronger rules and that FDA would produce new restrictions in line with those recommendations.

'Just a lot of talk'
Today, the FDA still has not done what it promised to do. The agency declined interviews, saying in a statement only that there is no timeline for new restrictions.

“It’s just a lot of talk,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., a senior House Democrat on food and farm issues. “It’s a lot of talk, a lot of press releases, and no action.”

[rodeodance]

10. 'Just a lot of talk'--FDA not done its job say critics.

'Just a lot of talk'
Today, the FDA still has not done what it promised to do. The agency declined interviews, saying in a statement only that there is no timeline for new restrictions.

“It’s just a lot of talk,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., a senior House Democrat on food and farm issues. “It’s a lot of talk, a lot of press releases, and no action.”

Unlike other infections, bovine spongiform encephalopathy, BSE, or mad cow disease, doesn’t spread through the air. As far as scientists know, cows get the disease only by eating brain and other nerve tissues of already-infected cows.

Ground-up cattle remains left over from slaughtering operations were used as protein in cattle feed until 1997, when an outbreak of mad cow cases in Britain prompted the U.S. to order the feed industry to quit doing it. Unlike Britain, however, the U.S. feed ban has exceptions........

[Miss Chybil]

11. What are the exceptions? On edit:

Never mind....

[mediaman007]

16. Yup, that's him...

(Next) Monday's press briefing should be interesting.


Susie Q: Can you elaborate on the recent confirmation of Mad Cow disease in our country?

Scotty: We've responded appropriately, there is no cause for concern. I'm sure there is more information at the FDA website.

Susie Q: Is there Mad Cow or not?

Scotty: Experts seem to not agree.

Susie Q: What does our goverment say?

Scotty: Bob

Bob Q: Was your brother in fact responsible for the lack of action?

Scotty: We've covered that, does anyone have any questions on the Downing Street Memo?

(edited for time)

[rodeodance]

17. would you have a link to this press conf. please. Thanks for verifying.

[mediaman007]

19. Its next Monday's Press Conference...(sarcasm)

[rodeodance]

24. gee, and i thought scotty had developed a sence of humor--with the

last line. te he. thanks

[rodeodance]

15. Schuters email address is here.

.....The irony is that if the Department of Agriculture really cared about the U.S. meat industry, the department would add a little pain now to prevent the industry from being decimated down the road when an outbreak occurs and nobody wants to buy U.S. meat. But once again, it’s all about short-term profits and paying back your political contributors. And consumers are left holding the bag... or in this case, mourning the deaths of loved ones who could die suddenly from the human form of BSE.

Did I mention that American scientists are tracking a mysterious spike in the U.S. of the human form of BSE, known as Creutzfeldt Jakob disease?

I apologize if this blog about cows eating slaughterhouse waste has made you lose your appetite. But, tell that to your congressman or senator. Maybe they will have better luck getting explanations from the government officials who are supposed to be responsible. My calls today to the Department of Agriculture were not returned.

Questions/comments: [e-mail]

[Renew Deal]

20. How do you know this will happen?

Why do you think it's so widespread? Have you seen anything saying that there will be widespread shortages?

[mediaman007]

21. There won't be any shortages, but I am thinking that many Americans

will put beef on hold for a while.

[MN ChimpH8R]

22. Maybe Chimpy has been eating bad beef

BSE would certainly explain his addled brain and total incoherence. :evilgrin:

[achtung_circus]

25. As a Canadian who is intimately involved in livestock

on the enforcement side, I am of 2 minds. My first, visceral, reaction is AHA. It was just a matter of time until an American born and raised animal was confirmed positive for BSE in spite of the USDA efforts to hide it.

USDA does prohibit the use of the 4 "Ds", down, dead, diseased and dying from the food chain. The same restrictions do not apply at state-inspected facilities. That this animal was delivered to a USDA plant implies the producer had his head up his butt.

At a minimum eat only USDA inspected beef, it's not the best, but it's better than state inspected beef.

US still allows "mechanically deboned" beef. This involves "rotating knives that strip every last shred of meat from the carcass for inclusion in hamburger. The problem is that this may carry along "Specified Risk Materials" SRM from lymph, spinal column and brain into the burger.

The feed ban in the US prohibiting the use of mammal to mammal feeding is widely seen as a joke.

BSE has been used as a non-tariff trade barrier for years. The agenda pushed by R-CALF USA to close the border to Canadian beef.

This issue could play 2 ways for Canadian producers. It might result in the reopening of the border to cattle less than 30 months old. Alternatively, it might be perceived as the USDA being unable to keep their own house in order and therefore incompetent to recommend such a reopening.

Currently the border is open to beef cut from cattle less than 30 months old. Canada is ramping up slaughter capacity to deal with the surplus cattle and should be self sufficient in slaughter within 1 year. The jobs in the American slaughterhouses are migrating north.

A combination of a tighter inspection regime in Canada and livestock traceability, where we are about 3 years ahead of the US will position Canada well to replace the US exporters in foreign markets, of which Japan is the plum.

[mediaman007]

27. I'm a city boy, but I have to say that your knowledge is impressive...

Most of my ideas came from knowing some farmers and ranchers in Minnesota/North Dakota, and listening to Canadian Broadcasting.

I know this: this is a big time problem.

[enigmatic]

33. I can't help but laugh about this

After they pretty much crippled the Alberta Beef Industry, they are getting a dose of their own medicine..

[achtung_circus]

37. It's not just Alberta and it's not just beef.

A "springer" is a dairy cow or heifer about to calve and begin producing milk. Canada used to be a major source of springers to the US dairy industry. Average price was around $3,500.

Yesterday I was at an auction. It was the largest sale in Ontario.

Good springers sold yesterday for $750, average was $350- $400.

[Shallah Kali]

34. Petition to US to use European Union beef standard

http://www.organicconsumers.org/madcow.htm

* Mandatory testing for all cattle brought to slaughter, before they enter the food chain.

* Ban the feeding of blood, manure, and slaughterhouse waste to animals.

* Stop harassing farmers and food processors who are interested in independently testing their own beef.

Please sign and past it along if you agree with those standards.

[Nothing Without Hope]

35. It's worse than not taking action, they have FORBIDDEN testing

for the disease even by people who wanted to do it. They KNEW there were more positives out there and they took steps to keep them from being found.

This is one of the great scandals of the Bush administration, and they are far overdue to take heat for it.

I'm afraid that people will say "oh, just two animals in all this time" and not worry about it as much as they should. They trust the government, the FOOLS.

[nicknameless]

40. Testing is forbidden?!

Could you elaborate/post a link?
That's awful...though not a surprise, these days.

[Nothing Without Hope]

44. HERE ARE 4 MAD COW ARTICLES that I saved. The situation is horrible,

yet another major Bush administration scandal designed to give short-term rewards to corporate cronies at the expense of the public. In the longer term, these policies will cripple the beef industry as the number of publicly known positive results rises despite the far-from-complete testing and lying about results.

Remember that the first US cow that tested positive was NOT a downer cow, despite what turned out to be lies in the vet's report. So a policy that targets testing to downer cows does NOT protect from the disease. Further, there is almost no enforcement of new beef processing rules designed to prevent BSE from contaminating meat used for food, and slaughtering procedures are largely unchanged as a result.

No links except for the last article cited in this group of four, but the dates and venues are there. The one with the link gave me a "sorry, story is not available" message just now when I clicked on the link.

Let me know if you want more - I have a lot more articles. They do not inspire confidence in the honesty or integrity of the big beef industry, the USDA, or the country's beef supply. (And remember that rendered beef byproducts turn up EVERYWHERE.)

Yahoo! News Fri, Mar 26, 2004

Beef firm faces perplexing resistance to mad cow tests

Fri Mar 26, 6:30 AM ET

Op/Ed - USATODAY.com

Creekstone Farms Premium Beef is a small producer of high-quality beef in Kansas. But it's making a big point about mad cow disease. It wants to privately test all of the cattle it slaughters for the illness, which can cause a fatal brain disease in humans who eat infected meat. The way Creekstone Farms sees it, 100% testing would reassure U.S customers. The company also says it is talking with Japan about restarting exports there, where total testing is required.

(snip)

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (news - web sites) (USDA) currently does not allow such private testing for mad cow disease. And it claims that a new government testing system it approved this month is perfectly adequate. More than 10 times the number of cattle will be tested for mad cow under the new system, but the government still will be testing less than 1% of the 37 million cattle slaughtered in the U.S. each year. That falls far short of the 100% testing Creekstone Farms is proposing and Japan provides.

Other beef producers complain that Creekstone Farms' 100% testing plans would set an expensive precedent. They worry that consumers might be misled into thinking an untested cut of beef isn't safe. But food producers ranging from organic growers to free-range farmers already market their products based on the idea that food produced in healthier ways or with added safeguards is worth paying for. Creekstone Farms' proposal taps into the same logic.

Other beef producers and the USDA say going beyond the new system is unnecessary. But hundreds of seemingly healthy cattle in Europe have tested positive for mad cow disease.

(snip)

This one is from the NY Times:

April 10, 2004

U.S. Won't Let Company Test All Its Cattle for Mad Cow

By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.

The Department of Agriculture refused yesterday to allow a Kansas beef producer to test all of its cattle for mad cow disease, saying such sweeping tests were not scientifically warranted.

The producer, Creekstone Farms Premium Beef, wanted to use recently approved rapid tests so it could resume selling its fat-marbled black Angus beef to Japan, which banned American beef after a cow slaughtered in Washington State last December tested positive for mad cow. The company has complained that the ban is costing it $40,000 a day and forced it to lay off 50 employees.

The department's under secretary for marketing and regulation, Bill Hawks, said in a statement yesterday that the rapid tests, which are used in Japan and Europe, were licensed for surveillance of animal health, while Creekstone's use would have "implied a consumer safety aspect that is not scientifically warranted."

(snip)

The department recently changed its testing regimen to make a one-time effort, beginning in June, to test 201,000 cows with symptoms of nervous disease or that are too sick or injured to walk, and 20,000 healthy older ones. The regimen assumes that cattle born before 1997, when a ban was imposed on feeding bovine tissue to cattle, are most at risk.

(snip)

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

From MSNBC:

More evidence mad cow not a 'downer'

Owner of slaughterhouse says USDA misled public about risks

By Jon Bonné
MSNBC
Updated: 5:05 p.m. ET Feb. 19, 2004

The owner of the slaughterhouse that killed the first U.S. cow found with mad cow disease has come forward to confirm that the cow was able to walk at the time it was killed.

Tom Ellestad, who with his family runs Vern's Moses Lake Meats, where the sick cow was slaughtered, says the cow could walk at the time it was killed and disputed the portrayal of his plant as one that mostly handled sick and injured cattle.

His claim further throws into doubt the insistence of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that the cow was a ‘downer’, which required that it be tested for mad cow disease, as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, a fatal brain disease, is commonly known.

Ellestad also accused the USDA of falling short of its responsibility to keep the public safe both before the Dec. 23 announcement that mad cow disease had arrived in the United States and after its Dec. 30 decision to ban downed cattle from the food supply, which it claimed would be a major step in ensuring consumers' health.

(snip - a long article)

This one is from Reuters, and I did save the link - but when I checked it just now, I got a message saying that the story is not available:

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=domesticNews&storyID=7143913

US Meat Plants Violating Mad Cow Rules-Inspectors

Mon Dec 20, 2004 05:02 PM ET
By Randy Fabi

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. meat plants are allowing brains and spinal cord from older cattle to enter the food supply, violating strict government regulations aimed at preventing the spread of mad cow disease, a federal meat inspectors union said on Monday.

Nearly a year after the first U.S. case of mad cow disease, meat plants have yet to implement measures required by the U.S. Agriculture Department to protect consumers, said the National Joint Council of Food Inspection Locals.

(snip)

"We know USDA's zero tolerance is not being met," Painter said. "We believe this is a widespread problem." He declined to say how many plants were in violation.

The USDA disagreed with the union, saying no prohibited cattle parts were slipping into the food supply.

(snip)

I don't eat US beef except for an very occasional cut purchased from a trusted natural foods market, where I know it was raised from birth on an all-vegetarian diet and slaughtered and processed safely. (And also had a not-too-bad life in a field.) I eat more fish than land-based meats, and I am trending toward total vegetarianism. I have found that well-prepared vegetarian food from around the world is delicious, healthful and satisfying, and no animals suffered and died for it. I've enjoyed my Indian vegetarian cooking class enormously and love stocking up in "ethnic" markets in the greater Boston area.

[nicknameless]

46. WOW! How breath-takingly nightmarish! Thanks for posting those.

Isn't it interesting that the meat industry is allowed to violate laws left and right, but aren't allowed to conscientiously test for food safety?

A while back, I ran across an article about a case of mad-cow/Creutzfeldt Jakob that turned up in a vegetarian. It was thought that he must have contracted it through consumption of dairy products. I'll look for it.

I really don't know what's safe these days. I won't eat beef or fish, since most fish are caught within 3 miles of shore, where most of the pollution is. I basically aim for organic turkey and some chicken. I was vegetarian for 10 years and have thyroid problems as a result. (Plant source proteins like soy can inhibit the thyroid's uptake of iodine.) It's so hard to know what's safe to eat these days. Very depressing.

[nicknameless]

38. Don't forget they put this crap in pet food as well.

By-products are allowed to contain "4D meats" (dead, dying, diseased and disabled). The alternatives are more expensive, of course, but well worth it. And Paul Newman makes a line of organic pet food.

"Mad Cow" disease can take quite a long time to show up in the affected animals. It's not uncommon for dairy cows to be the ones to show symptoms, because their lives are longer. (Raised for milk rather than for slaughter.)

On edit: I refuse to buy pet food that contains beef and try to avoid those with fish ingredients.

[Catchawave]

43. Article on USDA from Dec 2003.....

USDA Measures Don't Go Far Enough to Protect the American Public
December 31, 2003 by Michael Greger, M.D. for the Organic Consumers Association

The USDA decision to finally remove downer cattle from the human food supply is a welcome departure from the past week's Pollyanna public relations, but it can only be effective in conjunction with a dramatic increase in surveillance testing. In Europe, where they test 1 out of every 4 cows, and Japan, where they test 100% of all cattle bound for human consumption, they have found a number of cases of mad cow disease in animals who appeared perfectly healthy. In fact even the recently discovered Mad Cow didn't appear sick. Luckily it seems she had a birthing injury which left her unable to stand, which in turn flagged her in particular to be one of the small percentage of downer cows tested. Had she been able to walk, she presumably may not have been tested at all. How many other cows invisibly infected with the disease are ending up on our dinner plates undetected? And in the United States, we may be at particularly high risk for just such occurrences.
The European Commission's risk assessment of the U.S. points out, for example, the "young age at slaughter makes it unlikely that fully developed clinical cases would occur (and could be detected)..."<1> Less than half of American dairy cows make it past their fourth birthday, before being retired into hamburger meat.<2> In fact the majority of U.S. cattle are slaughtered before they reach age two.<3> While this may mean that the prion load in an infected animal may be less at slaughter (since prions accumulate with age), it also means mad cow disease may be harder to detect in the United States.<4> Younger cattle could be infected and infectious, but be slaughtered for human consumption before they started showing symptoms.<5> In fact the latest case of Mad Cow disease in Japan was in an animal only 23 months old. Although the rapid tests used in Japan and Europe were able to detect the deadly prions in so young a case, it seems that the test used in the U.S. which takes days instead of hours, failed to pick it up.<6> The chief reason why our present Mad Cow surveillance program has not more confirmed cases in the U.S. could very well be because our surveillance program is inadequate.<7> In other words, the reason other Mad Cows haven't been found in the U.S. may be because we Americans have eaten all the evidence.

The USDA misleadingly<http://organicconsumers.org/madcow/GregerBSE.cfm> boasts they are surpassing international testing standards, when in actuality we have fallen way behind. The United States and Europe have similar cattle populations,<8> for example, yet Europe tests almost a million cattle every month.<9> France, which has only a fraction of the U.S. cattle population, tests more cattle in a single week then the U.S. has tested in a decade.<10> According to Europe's latest annual report, Europe is testing cattle at a rate of almost two thousand times that of the United States.<11> Nobel Laureate Dr. Stanley Prusiner, the world's expert on prion disease, describes the number of tests done by USDA as "appalling." When asked what level of testing in the U.S. he'd be comfortable with, Prusiner replied, "I'd like to see every cow tested, just as they do in Japan."<12>

Universal testing of every cow slaughtered for human consumption in the U.S. is the only way to ensure the safety of the American beef supply. The majority of Americans may have breathed a sigh of relief at the realization that they did not live in Guam or the 8 states mentioned in the Mad Cow meat recall. But the concern is not so much where meat from that one infected cow went; the concern is what about the meat from all of her herd-mates who presumably ate the same infected feed years ago? Since we're only now implementing a cattle tracking system, the only way to renew confidence in the safety of American beef oversees and here at home is to dramatically increase surveillance. The cost of universal testing of every cow destined for slaughter has been estimated as adding but a few cents per pound to the cost of hamburger meat.

...more...http://www.organicconsumers.org/madcow/greger123103a.cfm

[Nothing Without Hope]

48. In fact, the earlier "downer cow" Mad Cow case was NOT a downer at all

This was a lie designed to reassure consumers that the beef supply is safe. That cow was walking and was tested by a fluke - the recording vet falsified the records to say it was a downer. Some info on that in the articles I posted above as well as many others.

The USDA is perfectly aware that Mad Cow turns up in non-downer cows. They also know that slaughtering and rendering procedures are supposed to have been changed to increase consumer safety but these changes are NOT enforced and generally not followed. (They know because they have been told repeatedly.)

The ban on testing is deliberate, to keep consumers in the dark.. This is one of the major scandals of the Bush Administration - and that's saying something.

ed:typo

[Nothing Without Hope]

45. Another point - rendered beef carcass materials turn up EVERYWHERE and

are often not labeled as such. Is the fatty material put into many cosmetics fully free from BSE if it is present in the animal? To my knowledge, it has never been tested.

I recommend buying cosmetics and other products that specifically do NOT contain rendered beef carcasses. I do a lot more shopping in Whole Foods (a reputable natural food supermarket chain) and Trader Joe's than I used to, and I'm trending toward vegetarianism.

[nicknameless]

47. Thought to be in dairy products:

"A 24-year-old vegetarian has been diagnosed with Cruetzfeld-Jacob disease. Scientists fear that milk and cheese may be the source of infection."

London Times, August 23, 1997 Michael Hornsby

Also in sheep & sheep dairy products (plus elk & deer):

http://www.mad-cow.org/00/jul00_late_news.html

[MrSlayer]

49. I doubt it will cripple the industry.

I don't think anyone will really care.

[flvegan]

54. Why would it? It tastes good.

So, damn the torpedos...full speed ahead.

[BrklynLiberal]

56. Great resource for information www.farmsanctuary.org

http://www.farmsanctuary.org/