Incite

Judge Prevents Import of Suspect Cows

The craziness continues. Our government is supposed to protect us, but it continues to gamble with our health. Canada has reported finding several "mad cows" yet Bush wants to start importing Canadian beef again. This will put our health needlessly at risk. I remain concerned about the cows we're raising here which "may" be safe. I'm more concerned about importing beef from a country we know is having problems with this. Right now, this judge seems to be our only line of defense.

Another thing this article mentions that I wasn't aware of is that Canada can't ship us cows, but it is still allowed to ship us packaged meat. How crazy is that?

Early this month in Billings, Mont., a federal judge, Richard Cebull, blocked the Bush administration's plans to resume imports of Canadian cattle and beef. Those imports ended in late May 2003 after mad cow disease was discovered in a Canadian cow. Since then, Canada has discovered three more cases of the disease. The United States Department of Agriculture argues that there is a "very low" or "minimal" risk in reopening the border to live cattle under 30 months of age and to certain cuts of beef. But that argument is based on a hope and a wish.

In pressing to reopen the border, Mr. Cebull writes in his injunction, the U.S.D.A. has made "a decision that subjects the entire U.S. beef industry to potentially catastrophic damages and that presents a genuine risk of death for U.S. customers." The Senate has endorsed this position, and the House is planning to introduce legislation. President Bush has vowed to veto any bill that keeps the border closed.

Read more: The New York Times > Opinion > Editorial: The Merry-Go-Round of Beef

Suspicion of a Mad Cow Case Proves Unfounded?

A cow that tested positive last week in preliminary tests for mad cow disease has tested negative in the follow-up, the Agriculture Department announced yesterday.

The government's National Veterinary Services Laboratories in Ames, Iowa, examined the cow's brain twice with what is called an immunohistochemistry test, which officials describe as the "gold standard," and the result was negative both times, the department said.

"Negative results from both IHC tests makes us confident that the animal in question is indeed negative," said John Clifford, deputy administrator of the department's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.

The thing that's curious about this is that the department refused to disclose most details of it's testing in this case. Why? The specific areas of the brain tested are a very important factor in determining the accuracy of the test. This makes it look like they have something to hide - even if they don't.

We want to know our beef supply is safe, and this is not reassuring.

Read more: The New York Times > Suspicion of a Mad Cow Case Proves Unfounded, Tests Find

FDA Not Focusing Correctly

In my opinion, the FDA is not focusing correctly on the Mad Cow disease problem. Their efforts seem to be focused on cows over 30 months old when the Japanese have proved that younger cows can have it as well. Allowing brain and spinal material in feed for cows younger than 30 months easily allows Mad Cow disease into the food chain.

They still seem to be focused on protecting the beef industry rather than the humans.

The FDA said on Jan. 26 it would ban animal blood in cattle feed, as well as ensure that dietary supplements and cosmetics are kept free of materials from cattle too sick or hurt to walk.

The FDA said it would also ban brain, skull and spinal material from cattle 30 months and older in FDA-regulated food and cosmetics. The measure reflects a similar U.S. Agriculture Department rule imposed on the meat industry in January.

Health News Article | Reuters.com

People Carrying Mad Cow Disease

Britain has already banned people from giving blood if they've had a transfusion in the last 24 years. Now, scientist speculate that around 4,000 people in Britain alone may be unknowingly carrying the prion that causes Mad Cow Disease in humans.

"There is a concern that individuals who are incubating the disease, who themselves don't show any evidence of the disease, could still pose a risk to others, if they were blood donors, or if they had an operation which involved instruments contacting infected tissues," he added.

Health News Article | Reuters.com

USDA Admits Problems with Canada Beef Imports

The USDA neglected to mention to Congress that some Canadian plants were allowed to request an exemption and export their beef to the U.S. regardless of the regulations.

The USDA said about 10 million pounds of beef were allowed into the United States from Canada since last summer, including hamburger, bone-in beef and processed beef. Last August, the USDA announced that it was only allowing boneless beef from young Canadian animals into the United States.

Health News Article | Reuters.com

One Producer of U.S. Beef Wants to Test All Its Cattle

This is Perfect!

There's finally an American beef company that wants to test every cow, and the USDA won't let them! Priceless.

Who's looking out for the consumer?

"A beef producer in Kansas has proposed testing all its cattle for mad cow disease so it can resume exports to Japan, but it is encountering resistance from the Agriculture Department and other beef producers."

"To assure the safety of its meat, the company, Creekstone Farms of Arkansas City, Kan., a subsidiary of the Enterprise Management Group, wants to use rapid diagnostic tests that are routinely used in Japan and many European nations.

But no rapid tests have been approved by the United States Department of Agriculture, and department officials pointed out yesterday that it was against the law for any company to sell or market any unapproved diagnostic test. They said they would not respond to Creekstone's request until they evaluated the legal, regulatory and trade implications raised."

Read more: One Producer of U.S. Beef Wants to Test All Its Cattle

More Variants of Mad Cow Disease

The New York Times says there's a new form of Mad Cow Disease - and we're not testing for it. It occurs in cows that look healthy and do not show the normal signs of the disease. They suggest there are several different human strains as well.

We need to do more testing.

"Along with the Italian study, there have been recent reports of unusual types of mad cow disease in France and Japan, and scientists say the discovery of new forms suggests that many cases of "sporadic" human disease — by far the most common kind, responsible for about 300 deaths a year in the United States — are not spontaneous at all, but come from eating animals."

Read more: New Form of Mad Cow Disease

New Form of Mad Cow Protein Discovered

Scientific American Magazine has a report on a new form of Mad Cow Disease prion. They believe this supports their hypothesis that Mad Cow disease may encompass a number of strains of the protein - like sheep prion disease.

"Salvatore Monaco of the University of Verona and his colleagues analyzed the brains of eight Italian cattle that had tested positive for BSE. In two of the oldest animals, the researchers found that the disease-causing prions differed from those typically associated with BSE. In addition, they detected widespread protein plaques in parts of the brain usually left unaffected by mad cow disease and found that the brain stems of the two animals were less altered by the disease than those of the other six animals were."

Read more: Scientific American: New Form of Mad Cow Protein Discovered

Mad Cow Disease or Alzheimers?

This information suggests that a portion of people diagnosed with Alzheimer's actually have Mad Cow disease. It suggests that Mad Cow disease can also manifest as normal Cruetzfeldt-Jacob disease (CJD). Therefore, this information suggests the U.S. has many more cases than we are aware of, and that people have been a felled by this for number of years.

"A 1989 Yale University study reported similar findings. Postmortem examination of 46 patients diagnosed with Alzheimer's revealed that six (13 percent) actually had CJD.

The Pittsburgh and Yale studies point to the possibility that some of the 4 million people in the United States suffering form Alzheimer's may actually be infected with the agent that causes CJD. And that raises this question: Has an unrecognized from of BSE infected U.S. cattle and entered the human food chain?"

Read more: How now mad cow?

More Mad Cow Contamination

This is more information from David Louthan who killed the Mad Cow. This is from his 2/12/2004 update:

"As far as separating bones and skeletal parts goes before you can do that you must first split the beef in half. This means you take a large band saw and saw straight down the spine from tail to neck. A good cut splits the spinal cord in half the long way. The saw teeth ripping out chunks of bone dust, blood, fat, and spinal cord material which mixes with hot water from jets cleaning the blade and runs down all over the carcass inside and out totally contaminating the meat."

Read more: updates