Japan Confirms 26th Mad Cow Disease Case

[donsu]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060513/ap_on_he_me/japan_mad_cow;_ylt=AnPAAa9C8q7rZLgJHNNDF92s0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3czJjNGZoBHNlYwM3NTE


-snip-

Meat inspectors in the northern state of Hokkaido found Thursday that a dairy cow tested positive for the disease, the ministry said in a statement. A panel of Agriculture Ministry experts confirmed the infection Saturday, according to ministry official Akiko Suzuki.

-snip-

The confirmation comes as Japanese and U.S. officials prepare to meet as early as next week to discuss lifting Tokyo's ban on American beef.

Japan initially banned U.S. beef in December 2003, following the first discovery of mad cow disease in the United States.

That ban was eased last December to allow the importation of meat from cows aged 20 months or less — seen as posing a lower risk of having the disease — but the ban was later tightened following the faulty beef shipment in January.
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wonder if mad cow will turn out to be worse then bird flu, long term?

[LeftyMom]

1. I think it will

The thing is that vCJD can't be diagnosed for sure until somebody dies and since the symptoms are smilar to alzheimers and other diseases of dementia few people's brains are ever checked for it. I suspect that we're already losing people to vCJD caused by eating beef infected with BSE (aka Mad Cow) prions but absent screening or meat and examination of dementia patients after death we may never know for sure.

[warrens]

9. Most vCJD is found in relatively young people

That's not to say that it couldn't affect older people too, but it generally has a pretty rapid onset. People are fine one day, very confused and addled a few weeks later, and within a few months, completely shut off, unable to talk or recognize others. Alzheimer's and senile dementia normally take a lot longer to reach that comatose state.

[livetohike]

14. My husband's Aunt was 62 when she was stricken with CJD

She was having a lot of motor problems. The doctors at first thought she was having mini strokes.

They did a brain biopsy to confirm the CJD (not that they could do anything about it). At least our family had a diagnosis - sad as it was.

[livetohike]

2. I wonder if this is the first case of finding the disease in a dairy cow

I have posted this before, but my husband's Aunt passed away from CJ back in 1993. It is a horrible way to go. We were told it was very rare and the doctors have no idea how she contracted it.

If the disease is in a dairy cow, could it (disease) be contracted through the milk? This is awful :scared:. If that is so than the whole world of milk drinking/milk product eating people is at risk.

[charlie]

4. It's passed through nervous system tissue

not milk or meat.

[livetohike]

5. We were given a medical journal article about what was known

then about CJD. I still have that article. Oysters were on the list of suspected foods in 1993.

My husband can no longer donate blood because he had a blood relative with CJD :-(.

[Hoping4Change]

7. However ground beef is dangerous because in slaughter

hopuses its fairly easy to contaminate the ground meat with pieseces of the spinal column.

AVOID ground meat. If you want burgers grind the meat yourself.

[SteppingRazor]

6. No, you can't get it from drinking milk...

one less nightmare to lose sleep over, eh? :hi:

[livetohike]

8. Not a problem for me. I am a Vegan

:-).

[SteppingRazor]

10. Bah. Hippie tree-hugger!

:hippie:


Actually, I respect that. Takes a lot more self-discipline than I have.

[livetohike]

12. It just kind of evolved over the past 35 years. I became a

vegetarian in college back in 1970. Beans and rice were a whole lot cheaper than meat. :hi:

[SteppingRazor]

15. Yeah, I was living off Ramen a decade ago when I went to college...

but as soon as I had some spending money, I went right back to my wicked, carnivorous ways :evilgrin:

[donsu]

11. I think the case we recently had was a dairy cow

2 mos. ago or so, give or take?

[livetohike]

13. I may have missed that one

:shrug:

[SteppingRazor]

3. Worse how?

Like, which one will manage toactually infect a couple hundred people out of the billions of people on the planet first? I'd go with Mad Cow, since it had a head start.

But offhand, both bird flu and mad cow seem to be as dangerous as the Y2K bug.