Guest guest Posted January 1, 2004 Report Share Posted January 1, 2004 KD Weber <wvadreamin Wednesday, 31 December 2003 8:36 More re: Mad Cow in USA CO Health Dept. Chief MD Warns Mad Cow In Blood Animals With Neurologic Disease Shouldn't Be Eaten http://www.rense.com/general46/mamad.html Regarding recent articles on mad cow disease, this is a serious public health situation that needs immediate attention by regulatory officials. Reports state that the meat from the suspect infected animal proceeded to enter the human food chain, but the nervous-system tissue did not. Since the infectious agents of mad cow disease - also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) - are not only isolated in the nervous tissue of animals but also in lymphatic tissue that occurs throughout the body of all animals, it would be prudent to enact an emergency rule to refrain from sending to market all meat from animals that have neurologic disease. The U.S. Senate passed such a ban, but the legislation was previously hung up in the U.S. House of Representatives. It is now time to immediately revisit this issue in the interest of public health. Richard L. Vogt, MD Executive Director Tri-County Health Department Greenwood Village US violates World Health Organization Guidelines for Mad Cow http://organicconsumers.org/madcow/GregerBSE.cfm The National Cattlemen's Beef Association describes government and industry efforts to safeguard the American public from mad cow disease as " swift, " " decisive " and " aggressive. " [1] The US Secretary of Agriculture adds " diligent, " [2] " vigilant " and " strong. " [3] The world's authority on these diseases disagrees. Dr. Stanley Prusiner is the scientist who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his discovery of prions, the infectious agents thought to cause bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease. The word Dr. Prusiner uses to describe the efforts of the U.S. government and the cattle industry is " terrible. " [4] What are these " stringent protective measures " [5] that the Cattlemen's Association is talking about, and how do they compare to global standards and internationally recognized guidelines? Mad CASH Disease Blocks Food Safety Rules http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/28/national/28COW.html Though some scientists had long warned that mad cow disease would eventually appear in the US, cattle owners and meatpackers repeatedly resisted calls for a more substantial program to test for the disease, and the Agriculture Dept. went along with them. Congress came close three times to banning the sale of meat from downer cows - ones that are too sick or hurt to amble into slaughterhouses - only to see the industry's allies block each of the bills at the last moment. And proposals for systems to track which farms produced sickened cattle - now required in Europe, Canada and Japan - also languished for years here... [Current] regulation leaves glaring loopholes. Rendered cattle can be fed to pigs and chickens, which can then be fed back to cows. Cow blood, which cannot be guaranteed free of disease, is widely fed to calves as a 'milk replacer.' Deer that may be infected with disease can be rendered into cattle feed. Enforcement of the regulation, they say, has been lax. Cow Parts Used in Candles, Soaps Recalled http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/story.jsp?floc=FF-APO-1110 & idq=/ff/story/00 01%2F20031227%2F142405422.htm & sc=1110 & related=off PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - Cow parts - including hooves, bones, fat and innards - are used in everything from hand cream and antifreeze to poultry feed and gardening soils. In the next tangled phase of the mad cow investigation, federal inspectors are concentrating on byproducts from the tainted Holstein, which might have gone to a half-dozen distributors in the Northwest, said Dalton Hobbs, spokesman for the Oregon Department of Agriculture. Now, it's the secondary parts, the raw material for soil, soaps and candles, that are being recalled. While some people fear consumers could be infected by inhaling particles of fertilizer or other products containing the mutated protein responsible for mad cow disease, a bigger concern is stopping tainted byproducts from infecting animal feed, believed to be the main agent for spreading the disease. But tracing all of the sick cow's parts to their final destination, including numerous possible incarnations in household products, has proved challenging. ``It's like the old Upton Sinclair line - 'We use everything but the squeal,''' Hobbs said. ``We have nearly 100 percent utilization of the animal. But when you have so many niche markets, it makes it incredibly challenging to trace where this one cow may have gone.'' Los Angeles-based Baker Commodities, Inc., announced Friday it has voluntarily withheld 800 tons of cow byproduct processed in its Seattle and Tacoma, Wash., plants. The company, like other ``renderers,'' takes what is left of the cow after it is slaughtered and boils it down into tallow, used for candles, lubricants and soaps, and bone meal used in fertilizer and animal feed. If the U.S. Food and Drug Administration determines that the material is tainted, the company's loss could total $200,000, said spokesman Ray Kelly. ``It's obviously a tragic thing for the whole beef industry, but it's definitely a sizable hit for us,'' he said. Darling International, Inc., the nation's largest independent rendering operation in the U.S., has also been contacted by the FDA. But officials at their Tacoma and Portland plants, as well as at their international headquarters in Irving, Texas, declined to comment on how their operation has been affected. ``Our first priority was to make sure it didn't go into the food supply,'' said Hobbs, reiterating that meat sent to two Oregon distributors was recalled earlier in the week. Companies that use bone meal from cows to create fertilizers popular with rose growers may find themselves under the spotlight. At the height of Britain's mad cow epidemic in the 1990s, three victims of the human form of mad cow were found to be gardeners. In 1996, the Royal Horticultural Society of London released an advisory, cautioning gardeners to wear face masks after it was reported that the dust from the bone-meal soil could carry the mutated protein. But Scientific American editor Philip Yam said there was no conclusive evidence the gardeners died from inhaling soil containing the infected cow tissue. A far greater risk is the cow material - including roughage and offal - used in animal feed, said Yam, whose book, ``The Pathological Protein,'' is a scientific account of the disease. In 1997, the FDA banned cow feed that included cow byproducts, after scientists concluded that the feed was the main transmitter of mad cow disease. The disease, formally known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, is found in a cow's nervous system. Yam points out that while giving cow feed to cows was outlawed, feeding it to poultry is still legal. Some farmers, he said, are still in the habit of feeding their cows ``chicken litter'' - the remains of the poultry feed, scooped off the ground, feathers and all. ``It's one of those loopholes,'' Yam said. ``It sounds good in theory - don't feed cow to cow, feed the remains to chickens. But in practice things happen.'' Critics also speculate that while chickens cannot contract BSE, they could act as carriers of the disease if they pick up prions in their feed and are themselves processed into cattle feed. Consumer advocates have also questioned whether feed processing plants have all strictly separated cow feed from other feed produced at the same facilities. The Food and Drug Administration has said it will probably write new regulations that could require companies that slaughter ``downer'' livestock - animals that are sick or injured - to dispose of the brain and spinal cord before mixing animal feed and pet food, expanding on the 1997 ban. Robert Assali, who manages Southern Oregon Tallow in Eagle Point, Ore., said he sees the end of his profession if the mad cow hype continues. ``We're going to become a mortuary service - just hauling animals to landfills,'' Assali said. 30 December. Burger joints' quip: How now, safe cow. Radio spots, along with a new TV campaign set to launch the same day, won't specifically mention why the company is shifting its focus from taste to safety, but it will be implied. Rocky Mountain News, Colorado. Honest GOP Meatpacker Was Ground Up Like Hamburger by BushEman http://www.motherjones.com/news/hellraiser/2003/11/ma_573_01.html When John Munsell, owner of a family-run meat packing plant in Miles City, Montana, reported that he had received tainted meat from ConAgra's massive Greely, Colorado, facility he got a surprise. Instead of recalling the meat, the USDA shut down Munsell's grinding operation for four months. The experience has made an activist of the die-hard Republican, who has become a vocal critic of a federal system that allows the big players to largely regulate themselves. Munsell is Mother Jones' Nov./Dec. 'Hellraiser' activist. 30 December. Scientists divided on disease's risk to humans. Despite continued reassurances by federal health authorities that meat from cattle infected with mad cow disease is safe, leading scientists who first found the cause of such illnesses insist that the actual risk is not known. San Francisco Chronicle, California 30 December. Experts try to assess risk from diseased cow. There are two fears that Americans seem to have in the wake of the discovery of mad cow disease in a Washington cow, and the science of assessing them is very different. New York Times. 30 December. Scientists disagree on cause of infection. Drowned out by calls for more testing and regulation to protect against mad cow disease are major disagreements over what causes the illness, how it is transmitted and even what parts of a contaminated cow may be unsafe to eat. Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Washington. 30 December. Sheep ailment may hold clues to Mad Cow Disease. No one knows for sure when or where the first cow went mad, but the first recorded case occurred in December 1984 when a dairy cow on a farm in West Sussex began to stumble around and act strange. New York Times. 30 December. US ponders overhauling beef rules. The investigation into the lineage of a Holstein diagnosed with mad-cow disease could bring about the greatest changes in the US meat industry since Upton Sinclair's muckraking novel " The Jungle " led to the creation of the Food and Drug Administration nearly a century ago. Christian Science Monitor. 30 December. Mad Cow case renews feed testing debate. Congressional investigators last year sharply criticized federal efforts to keep mad cow disease out of the United States after finding weak enforcement of a ban on certain cattle feed considered the likely source of such infections. Austin American Statesman, Texas. 30 December. US pegs Mad-Cow exposure at 81. Federal investigators increased to 81 the number of cattle now roaming the U.S. that may have been exposed to mad-cow disease. Meanwhile, cattle-futures prices plunged at record speed. Wall Street Journal [subscription required]. 30 December. U.S. says sick cow was born before feed ban. Age cited in effort to reassure public: Federal officials sought to reassure jittery consumers Monday by saying that the 6 1/2-year-old dairy cow that tested positive for mad cow disease had been born four months before the United States and Canada banned a type of cattle feed blamed for spreading the deadly ailment. San Francisco Chronicle, California. 30 December. Infected cow old enough to have eaten now-banned feed. Federal officials said Monday that the Washington State dairy cow afflicted with the nation's first case of mad cow disease was born in April 1997, just four months before the United States and Canada outlawed the use of cattle feed containing ingredients considered the principal, if not only, means of transmitting the disease. New York Times. 30 December. Investigators say cow's birth preceded effort to stem disease. A Holstein afflicted with mad cow disease was born in April 1997, the Agriculture Department's chief veterinarian said today, calling that fact " especially important " and heartening for those concerned about the safety of American beef. New York Times. 30 December. Mad Cow case may predate feed ban. A U.S. Holstein probably was infected with mad cow disease before safety bans were enacted in 1997 on feed in the United States and Canada, officials said yesterday. Washington Post. 30 December. Cow's birth predates feed ban, US says. Federal investigators said Monday that a Washington state Holstein diagnosed with " mad cow " disease was born in Canada in April 1997, months before implementation of a U.S.-Canadian ban on cattle feed containing animal parts. Los Angeles Times, California. 30 December. Holstein's origin will be clue to US safeguards' success. The probe into the nation's first mad cow case has reached a crucial juncture in determining whether U.S. cattle are being adequately protected from the dreaded brain disease, experts said yesterday. Washington Post. 30 December. Canada awaits test results on cow. The Canadian government said Monday that it was awaiting conclusive DNA test results to confirm whether a cow with mad cow disease discovered in the United States was born on a farm in Alberta. Some officials said they were surprised by an earlier U.S. decision to announce a possible link to a Canadian farm before such information was verified. Washington Post. 30 December. Mad Cow? Canadians don't seem to notice. No event has garnered more media attention in Canada over the last week than the mad cow disease across the border in Washington state, and the growing likelihood that the infected animal came from Canada. Yet, in terms of Canadians' eating habits, the news has been a nonevent. New York Times. 30 December. Infected cow's age suggests lower risk. The Washington state cow infected with mad cow disease was born four months before the United States and Canada instituted bans on feed containing potentially infectious material, U.S. Department of Agriculture officials said Monday. The determination that the cow was more than 6 years old -- not 4, as originally thought -- is good news for the U.S. meat industry. USA Today. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 8, 2004 Report Share Posted January 8, 2004 if true " are not only isolated in the nervous tissue of animals but also in lymphatic tissue that occurs throughout the body of all animals, " then live animals can be tested for BSE correct and not just the dead ones thru brain biopsies. --- Misty <misty3 wrote: > > > KD Weber <wvadreamin > > Wednesday, 31 December 2003 8:36 > More re: Mad Cow in USA > > > CO Health Dept. Chief MD > Warns Mad Cow In Blood > Animals With Neurologic Disease Shouldn't Be Eaten > http://www.rense.com/general46/mamad.html > Regarding recent articles on mad cow disease, this > is a serious public > health situation that needs immediate attention by > regulatory officials. > > Reports state that the meat from the suspect > infected animal proceeded to > enter the human food chain, but the nervous-system > tissue did not. Since the > infectious agents of mad cow disease - also known as > bovine spongiform > encephalopathy (BSE) - are not only isolated in the > nervous tissue of > animals but also in lymphatic tissue that occurs > throughout the body of all > animals, it would be prudent to enact an emergency > rule to refrain from > sending to market all meat from animals that have > neurologic disease. > > The U.S. Senate passed such a ban, but the > legislation was previously hung > up in the U.S. House of Representatives. It is now > time to immediately > revisit this issue in the interest of public health. > > Richard L. Vogt, MD Executive Director Tri-County > Health Department > Greenwood Village > > US violates World Health Organization Guidelines > for Mad Cow > http://organicconsumers.org/madcow/GregerBSE.cfm > > The National Cattlemen's Beef Association > describes government and > industry efforts to safeguard the American public > from mad cow disease as > " swift, " " decisive " and " aggressive. " [1] The US > Secretary of Agriculture > adds " diligent, " [2] " vigilant " and " strong. " [3] The > world's authority on > these diseases disagrees. Dr. Stanley Prusiner is > the scientist who won the > Nobel Prize in Medicine for his discovery of prions, > the infectious agents > thought to cause bovine spongiform encephalopathy > (BSE), or mad cow disease. > The word Dr. Prusiner uses to describe the efforts > of the U.S. government > and the cattle industry is " terrible. " [4] What are > these " stringent > protective measures " [5] that the Cattlemen's > Association is talking about, > and how do they compare to global standards and > internationally recognized > guidelines? > > Mad CASH Disease Blocks Food Safety Rules > http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/28/national/28COW.html > Though some scientists had long warned that mad cow > disease would eventually > appear in the US, cattle owners and meatpackers > repeatedly resisted calls > for a more substantial program to test for the > disease, and the Agriculture > Dept. went along with them. Congress came close > three times to banning the > sale of meat from downer cows - ones that are too > sick or hurt to amble into > slaughterhouses - only to see the industry's allies > block each of the bills > at the last moment. And proposals for systems to > track which farms produced > sickened cattle - now required in Europe, Canada and > Japan - also languished > for years here... [Current] regulation leaves > glaring loopholes. Rendered > cattle can be fed to pigs and chickens, which can > then be fed back to cows. > Cow blood, which cannot be guaranteed free of > disease, is widely fed to > calves as a 'milk replacer.' Deer that may be > infected with disease can be > rendered into cattle feed. Enforcement of the > regulation, they say, has been > lax. > > Cow Parts Used in Candles, Soaps Recalled > http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/story.jsp?floc=FF-APO-1110 & idq=/ff/story/00 > 01%2F20031227%2F142405422.htm & sc=1110 & related=off > PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - Cow parts - including > hooves, bones, fat and > innards - are used in everything from hand cream and > antifreeze to poultry > feed and gardening soils. > > In the next tangled phase of the mad cow > investigation, federal > inspectors are concentrating on byproducts from the > tainted Holstein, which > might have gone to a half-dozen distributors in the > Northwest, said Dalton > Hobbs, spokesman for the Oregon Department of > Agriculture. > > Now, it's the secondary parts, the raw > material for soil, soaps and > candles, that are being recalled. > > While some people fear consumers could be > infected by inhaling > particles of fertilizer or other products containing > the mutated protein > responsible for mad cow disease, a bigger concern is > stopping tainted > byproducts from infecting animal feed, believed to > be the main agent for > spreading the disease. > > > But tracing all of the sick cow's parts to > their final destination, > including numerous possible incarnations in > household products, has proved > challenging. > > > ``It's like the old Upton Sinclair line - 'We > use everything but the > squeal,''' Hobbs said. ``We have nearly 100 percent > utilization of the > animal. But when you have so many niche markets, it > makes it incredibly > challenging to trace where this one cow may have > gone.'' > > > Los Angeles-based Baker Commodities, Inc., > announced Friday it has > voluntarily withheld 800 tons of cow byproduct > processed in its Seattle and > Tacoma, Wash., plants. The company, like other > ``renderers,'' takes what is > left of the cow after it is slaughtered and boils it > down into tallow, used > for candles, lubricants and soaps, and bone meal > used in fertilizer and > animal feed. > > > If the U.S. Food and Drug Administration > determines that the material > is tainted, the company's loss could total $200,000, > said spokesman Ray > Kelly. > > > ``It's obviously a tragic thing for the whole > beef industry, but it's > definitely a sizable hit for us,'' he said. > > > Darling International, Inc., the nation's > largest independent > rendering operation in the U.S., has also been > contacted by the FDA. But > officials at their Tacoma and Portland plants, as > well as at their > international headquarters in Irving, Texas, > declined to comment on how > their operation has been affected. > > > ``Our first priority was to make sure it > didn't go into the food > supply,'' said Hobbs, reiterating that meat sent to > two Oregon distributors > was recalled earlier in the week. > > > Companies that use bone meal from cows to > create fertilizers popular > with rose growers may find themselves under the > spotlight. At the height of > Britain's mad cow epidemic in the 1990s, three > victims of the human form of > mad cow were found to be gardeners. > > === message truncated === Hotjobs: Enter the " Signing Bonus " Sweepstakes http://hotjobs.sweepstakes./signingbonus Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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