Canadian Mad Cow Crisis Puts American Beef Supply at Risk

[Guest guest]

does this mean they'll be after our tofu and soy burgers??

~shahara

[Guest guest]

American Beef Supply at Risk

 

by Michael Greger, M.D. for the Organic Consumers Association

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

 

May 21, 2003

 

The Canadian Agriculture Minister announced yesterday that a

cow in Canada has tested positive for bovine spongiform

encephalopathy, better known as mad cow disease. The United States

immediately imposed a ban on Canadian beef and cattle imports, but

the American beef supply may have already been placed at risk.

Canada has been the number one supplier of live cattle to the

United States.[1] Last year alone we imported 1.7 million head of

cattle from Canada.[2] We also imported $2.4 billion worth of

beef[3]--that's over a billion pounds of Canadian beef in the last

year alone.[4] According to the National Cattleman's Beef

Association, about 7 percent of beef consumed by Americans is from

Canada.[5] And because of NAFTA, there is no mandatory country of

origin labeling from Canada, so there is currently no way for

American consumers to know for certain if the beef they are eating

came from Canada or not.[6] This is unfortunately not the first time

the United States has imported cattle and beef products from

countries at risk.

The United States General Accounting Office (GAO) is the

investigative watchdog arm of Congress. Last year, the GAO released

their report on the weaknesses present in the U.S. defense against

mad cow disease.[7] They noted that " the United States has imported

about 1,000 cattle; about 23 million pounds of meat by-products;

about 100 million pounds of beef; and about 24 million pounds of

prepared beef products during the past 20 years from countries where

BSE was later found. " [8] Furthermore, the report said that if the

disease did enter the country, current safeguards might not be enough

to detect it and keep it from spreading to other cattle or to the

human food supply.[9] The report can be downloaded at

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d02183.pdf

The discovery of a case of mad cow disease in Canada

highlights how ineffective current safeguards are in North America.

The explosive spread of mad cow disease in Europe has been blamed on

the cannibalistic practice of feeding slaughterhouse waste to

livestock.[10] Both Canada[11] and the United States[12] banned the

feeding of the muscles and bones of most animals to cows and sheep

back in 1997, but unlike Europe left gaping loopholes in the law. For

example, blood is currently exempted from the Canadian[13] and the

U.S.[14] feed bans. You can still feed calves cow's blood collected

at the slaughterhouse. In modern factory farming practice calves may

be removed from their mothers immediately after birth, so the calves

are fed milk replacer, which is often supplemented with protein rich

cow serum.[15] Weaned calves and young pigs have cattle blood sprayed

directly on their feed to save money on feed costs.[16] Michael

Hansen with the Consumer's Union reports that cows won't eat feed

composed of more than ten percent blood, evidently because of the

taste.[17] Chickens, on the other hand, reportedly will eat feed

composed of up to thirty-five percent blood.[18]

The reason why the American Red Cross continues to restrict

blood donations from those who lived in Europe[19] is because of

mounting evidence that indeed blood may be infectious.[20] In fact

the mad cow outbreak in Japan has been tentatively tied to milk

replacer.[21] Yet cow blood is still allowed to be fed to livestock

in this country.

And the Canadian[22] and U.S. feed bans[23] also allows the

feeding of pigs and horses to cows. Cattle remains can be fed to

pigs, for example, and then the pig remains can be fed back to

cattle.[24] Or cattle remains can be fed to chickens and then the

chicken litter, or manure, can be legally fed back to the cows.[25]

And the cow diagnosed with mad cow disease in Canada may have indeed

been rendered into chicken and pig feed.[26]

D. Carleton Gajdusek was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine

for his work on mad cow-like diseases.[27] He was quoted on Dateline

NBC as saying, " it's got to be in the pigs as well as the cattle.

It's got to be passing through the chickens. " [28] Dr. Paul Brown,

medical director for the US Public Health Service, believes that pigs

and poultry could indeed be harboring mad cow disease and passing it

on to humans, adding that pigs are especially sensitive to the

disease. " It's speculation, " he says, " but I am perfectly

serious. " [29]

Although the Canadian Food Inspection Agency admits the

infected cow was sent to a rendering plant, the agency has tried to

reassure consumers by describing rendering as a heat-treatment

process used to 'sterilize' the carcass.[30] Unfortunately, the type

of pathogen thought to cause mad cow disease is not destroyed by the

rendering process.

Mad cow disease is thought to caused not by a virus, fungus

or bacteria, but by a prion, or infectious protein. One reason prions

are so concerning is that, unlike conventional pathogens, prions are

not adequately destroyed by cooking, canning, or freezing.[31,32]

Usable doses of UV or ionizing radiation, stomach acid, and digestive

enzymes are all ineffective in destroying their infectivity.[33, 34]

Even heat sterilization, domestic bleach[35], and formaldehyde

sterilization have little or no effect.[36] One study even raised the

disturbing question of whether even incineration could guarantee

inactivation of prions.[37] National Institutes of Health expert

Joseph Gibbs once remarked tongue-in-cheek to Cornell's Food Science

Department that one of the only ways to ensure one's burger is safe

is to marinate it in a concentrated alkali such as Drain-O.[38]

Prions have been called the smallest,[39] most lethal

self-perpetuating biological entities in the world.[40]

Europe has forbidden the feeding of all slaughterhouse waste

to livestock. The United States and Canada should do the same,

according to William Leiss, President of the prestigious Royal

Society of Canada.[41] The American Feed Industry Association calls

such a ban a radical proposition.[42] The American Meat Institute

also disagrees stating, " [n]o good is accomplished by...prejudicing

segments of society against the meat industry. " [43]

U.S. health officials[44] and the Canadian Agriculture

Minister[45]were quick to emphasize that only a single positive case

was found. But Canada has been testing less than 0.01 percent of

their cattle population for mad cow disease.[46] Canada now joins the

ranks of other countries like Germany, France, Belgium and Italy that

all confidently pronounced that they, too, were " free " of mad cow

disease, until tests showed otherwise.[47] Will the United States be

next?

The General Accounting Office was right to fault the USDA for

inadequate testing.[48] Last year, the United States tested a little

under 20,000 cattle for mad cow disease.[49] That's less than Europe

tests every day.[50] " This demonstrates that no cattle-producing

country can think it's safe, " Steve Bjerklie of Meat Processing

magazine told USA Today in response to the Canadian discovery. " It

really is a clarion call to the U.S. Department of Agriculture to

step up surveillance in this country. " [51] More information about the

inadequacy of mad cow disease surveillance in the United States can

be found at http://www.testcowsnow.com/

No one yet knows the source of the Canadian outbreak. It

remains possible that the cow in question contracted the disease from

local wildlife.[52] Chronic wasting disease is a prion disease of

wildlife affecting deer and elk, and is endemic within the area where

the infected cow was living.[53] The disease was exported there by

the United States

Chronic wasting disease, also called 'mad deer disease,'

seems to have started in Colorado, but has now been found in over a

dozen states.[54] Just last year it crossed the continental divide

into Wisconsin where a mass killing zone has just been set up to

eradicate tens of thousands of whitetail deer in a vain attempt to

slow the spread of the disease.[55] Chronic wasting disease seems

unique in that the prions seem to be spread by casual contact between

the deer. One can only hope that this disease would not be as

infectious if it jumped from deer or elk into cattle (or into human

beings for that matter).[56] Transmission to cows or people has yet

to be documented, but the best available science suggests that it is

possible.[57]

It was only last week when the Food and Drug Administration

finally drafted up proposed voluntary guidelines recommending that

deer and elk infected with chronic wasting disease, or at high risk

for the disease, be excluded from animal feed.[58] This is a measure

the World Health Organization and the United Nations Food and

Agriculture Organization has been urging for years.[59]

Thankfully, Canada has a trace-back program in which all

Canadian cattle are tracked throughout their lives. This should

facilitate locating the source of the outbreak. The United States

lacks such a program. U.S. officials argue that such extensive

tracking isn't necessary, because there has never been a case of mad

cow disease detected in the U.S.. As one Alberta veterinarian

responded, " we (Canadians) would have said that yesterday. " [60]

In response to the Canadian crisis, the Chief Executive

Officer of the U.S. National Cattlemen's Beef Association released a

statement urging consumers to " continue to eat beef in

confidence. " [61] " First, " the news release explains, " the Canadian

case proves that the systems designed to protect consumers do work.

The animal in question did not enter the food supply. " Based on the

circumstances, though, it seems more like random chance that the cow

got tested at all.[62] And had the animal instead entered a U.S.

slaughterhouse, chances that it would have been tested seem even more

remote.

The Cattlemen's Association note specifically that Americans

can be confident in the safety of U.S. beef because, " Animals with

any signs of neurological disorder are not permitted to enter the

human food chain and are tested for BSE. " [63] Yet the Canadian cow

wasn't necessarily displaying neurological symptoms. The Alberta

Agriculture Minister Shirley McClellan explained the 14 week testing

delay by noting that the cow didn't appear to have BSE when it was

condemned; it was underweight and thought to have pneumonia.[64] The

provincial laboratory evidently just tested the animal as part of

their routine 1 in 10,000 surveillance for mad cow disease.[65]

Fortuitously, though, the cow in Canada was deemed unfit for

human consumption.[66] There's reason to believe that if the cow had

entered a U.S. slaughterhouse, not only might it not have been

tested, it may have ended up on America's dinner plate. According to

an investigation of USDA slaughterhouse records, almost three

quarters of cattle that were even too sick to stand were passed as

fit for human consumption, including those who appeared sick with

pneumonia.[67] The slaughter of these downed animals for human food

is particularly risky now that mad cow disease has been discovered in

North America. The downed animal investigation can be downloaded at

http://www.nodowners.org/downedanimals.pdf

The Cattlemen's Association also feels consumers can be

confident in the safety of American beef because " The BSE agent is

not found in meat. It is found in central nervous system tissue such

as brain and spinal cord. " [68] This can be viewed as irresponsible on

two counts. First, American do eat bovine central nervous system

tissue. Quoting from the General Accounting Office report: " In terms

of the public health risk, consumers do not always know when foods

and other products they use may contain central nervous system

tissue... Many edible products, such as beef stock, beef extract, and

beef flavoring, are frequently made by boiling the skeletal remains

(including the vertebral column) of the carcass... " [69] According to

the consumer advocacy organization Center for Science in the Public

Interest, spinal cord contamination may also be found in U.S. hot

dogs, hamburgers, pizza toppings, and taco fillings.[70] In fact, a

2002 USDA survey showed that approximately 35 percent of high risk

meat products tested positive for CNS and CNS-associated tissues.[71]

The GAO report continues: " In light of the experiences in

Japan and other countries that were thought to be BSE free, we

believe that it would be prudent for USDA to consider taking some

action to inform consumers when products may contain central nervous

system or other tissue that could pose a risk if taken from a

BSE-infected animal. This effort would allow American consumers to

make more informed choices about the products they consume. " [72] The

USDA, however, did not follow those recommendations, deciding such

foods need not be labeled.[73]

Even if one avoids processed beef products, though, the

possibility of prion contamination remains. While concentrations of

prions may start out in the brain and spinal cord, they may not stay

there. Before being exsanguinated, many cattle in the U.S. are

knocked unconscious with a pneumatic gun, which uses an explosive

burst of air that can blows bits of potentially highly infectious

brain throughout the bodies of animals stunned for slaughter.[74]

Despite these shortcomings, both the U.S.[75] and Canadian

agriculture secretaries[76] have scrambled to express their continued

affinity for steak, reminiscent of the 1990 fiasco in which the

British agriculture minister appeared on TV urging his 4-year-old

daughter to eat a hamburger.[77] Four years later, young people in

Britain were dying from an invariably fatal neurogenerative disease

called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease--the human equivalent of mad

cow disease--which they contracted through the consumption of

infected beef.[78]

The General Accounting Office report concludes: " BSE may be

silently incubating somewhere in the United States. If that is the

case, then FDA 's failure to enforce the feed ban may already have

placed U.S. herds and, in turn, the human food supply at risk. FDA

has no clear enforcement strategy for dealing with firms that do not

obey the feed ban... Moreover, FDA has been using inaccurate,

incomplete, and unreliable data to track and oversee feed ban

compliance. " [79]

The U.S. and Canada have basically the same safeguards in

place, with the same loopholes and the same inadequate surveillance.

If Canada has mad cow disease, then it stands to reason that the

United States does as well. Either way, whether from the millions of

cattle, or the billions of pounds of beef we imported from Canada

previous to yesterday's ban, American beef consumers have been placed

at risk.

 

[1] The Associated Press 21 May 2003.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Financial Times (London) 21 May 2003.

[4] The New York Times 21 May 2003.

[5] The Atlanta Journal and Constitution 21 May 2003.

[6] Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund News Release. United

Stockgrowers of America. 21 May 2003.

http://www.r-calfusa.com/052003-canada.htm

[7]United States General Accounting Office. GAO Report to

Congressional Requesters. January 2002 MAD COW DISEASE: Improvements

in the Animal Feed Ban and Other Regulatory Areas Would Strengthen

U.S. Prevention Efforts. GAO-02-183.

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d02183.pdf

[8] Ibid.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Kimberlin, R. H. " Human Spongiform Encephalopathies and BSE. "

Medical Laboratory Sciences 49 (1992): 216-217.

[11] Canadian Food Inspection Agency BSE Fact Sheet. May 2003

P0091E-00.

http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/anima/heasan/disemala/bseesb/bseesbe.shtml

[12] Food and Drug Administration 2000 CFR Title 21, Volume 6,

Chapter 1, Part 589.

http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_00/21cfr589_00.html

[13] Canadian Food Inspection Agency, Regulations: Food for

Ruminants, Livestock and Poultry (Part XIV), " Prohibited Materials "

[14] Food and Drug Administration 2000 CFR Title 21, Volume 6,

Chapter 1, Part 589.

http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_00/21cfr589_00.html

[15] International Center for Technology Assessment. Citizen Petition

Before The United States

Food And Drug Administration. 1/9/03. http://www.icta.org/legal/madcow1.htm

[16] Ibid.

[17] Kirchheimer, Gabe. Bovine Bioterrorism: The Perfect Pathogen. In

Everything You Know Is Wrong. The Disinformation Company. 2002.

[18] Ibid.

[19] American Red Cross Addresses the Human Form of Mad Cow Disease

http://www.redcross.org/services/biomed/blood/supply/tse.html

[20] Journal of General Virology 83(2002):2897-2905.

[21] Japan Today 24 August 2002.

[22] Canadian Food Inspection Agency, Regulations: Food for

Ruminants, Livestock and Poultry (Part XIV), " Prohibited Materials "

[23] Food and Drug Administration 2000 CFR Title 21, Volume 6,

Chapter 1, Part 589.

http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_00/21cfr589_00.html

[24] Public Citizen. Letter to the FDA and USDA RE: BSE. 21 April

2001. http://www.citizen.org/cmep/foodsafety/gsfc/articles.cfm?ID=1562

[25] Food and Drug Administration Sec. 685.100 Recycled Animal Waste

(CPG 7126.34)

[26] National Post 21 May 2003.

[27] Unconventional viruses and the origin and disappearance of kuru.

13 December 1976.

http://www.nobel.se/medicine/laureates/1976/gajdusek-lecture.html

[28] NBC Dateline 14 March 1997.

[29] Pearce, Fred. " BSE May Lurk in Pigs and Chickens. " New Scientist

6 April 1996: 5.

[30] Canadian Food Inspection Agency. Questions and Answers.

Investigation of BSE case in Alberta.

http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/corpaffr/newcom/2003/20030520qae.shtml

[31] Taylor, D. M. " Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy. " Medical

Laboratory Sciences 49 (1992): 334-9.

[32] Lacey, Richard W. and Stephen F. Dealler. " The BSE Time Bomb? "

The Ecologist 21 (1991): 117- 122.

[33] Marsh, R. F., and R. A. Bessen. " Epidemiologic and Experimental

Studies on Transmissible Mink Encephalopathy. " Developments in

Biological Standardization 80 (1993): 111-118.

[34] Dealler, S. F. and R. Lacey. " Beef and Bovine Spongiform

Encephalopathy. " Nutrition and Health 7 (1991): 117-129.

[35] Dealler, S. F. and R. Lacey. " Transmissible Spongiform

Encephalopathies. " Food Microbiology 7 (1990): 253-279.

[36] Holt, T. A. and J. Phillips " Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy. "

British Medical Journal 296 (1988): 1581-2.

[37] Brown, Paul, et al. " Resistance of Scrapie Infectivity to Steam

Autoclaving after Formaldehyde Fixation and Limited Survival after

Ashing at 360oC. " Journal of Infectious Diseases 161 (1990): 467-472.

[38] Gibbs, C.J. " BSE and Other Spongiform Encephalopathies in Humans

and Animals: Causative Agent, Pathogenesis and Transmission. " Fall

1994 Food Science Seminar Series. Department of Food Science. Cornell

University, 1 December 1994.

[39] Keeton, William T., et al. Biological Science New York: Norton, 1993.

[40] Hunter, G. D. Scrapie and Mad Cow Disease New York: Vantage Press, 1993.

[41] Ottawa Citizen 6 June 2001

[42] Evans, Eddie. " Agency to Ban Some Feeds to Block Mad-Cow

Disease. " Reuters World Report 13 May 1996.

[43] " AVMA Casts Doubt on Spread of BSE Through Sheep Offal. " Food

Chemical News 28 November 1994: 42-45.

[44] Washington Post 21 May 2003.

[45] Toronto Star 21 May 2003.

[46] The Record (Kitchener-Waterloo) 12 September 2002.

[47] Ibid.

[48] United States General Accounting Office. GAO Report to

Congressional Requesters. January 2002 MAD COW DISEASE: Improvements

in the Animal Feed Ban and Other Regulatory Areas Would Strengthen

U.S. Prevention Efforts. GAO-02-183.

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d02183.pdf

[49] USDA News Release No. 0166.03. Statement by Agriculture

Secretary Ann M. Veneman Regarding Canada's Announcement of BSE

Investigation. May 20, 2003.

[50] European Union. Monthly reports of Member States on BSE and

Scrapie.

http://europa.eu.int/comm/food/fs/bse/testing/bse_results_en.html

[51] USA Today 21 May 2003.

[52] The Washington Post 21 May 2003.

[53] Ibid.

[54] USDA Center for Animal Health Programs. Chronic Wasting Disease.

13 May 2003.

http://www.aphis.usda.gov/vs/nahps/cwd/cwd-distribution.html

[55] Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. CWD Management Zone.

http://www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/land/wildlife/whealth/issues/cwd/CWDzones.jpg

[56] Connecticut Post 22 September 2002.

[57] European Molecular Biology Organization Journal

19(2000):4425-4430.

http://emboj.oupjournals.org/cgi/content/full/19/17/4425

[58] FDA Talk Paper T03-34. 15 May 2003.

[59] What Canadians Need to Know About Mad Cow Disease. Canadian

Health Coalition. 13 July 2001. http://www.healthcoalition.ca/bse.html

[60] USA Today 21 May 2003.

[61] National Cattlemen's Beef Association news release. 21 May 2003.

http://www.beef.org/dsp/dsp_content.cfm?locationId=45 & contentTypeId=2 & contentId=\

2098

[62] Canadian Television Network 21 May 2003.

[63] National Cattlemen's Beef Association news release. 21 May 2003.

http://www.beef.org/dsp/dsp_content.cfm?locationId=45 & contentTypeId=2 & contentId=\

2098

[64] Canadian Television Network 21 May 2003.

[65] National Post 21 May 2003.

[66] Ibid.

[67] A Review of USDA Slaughterhouse Records for Downed Animals (U.S.

District 65 from January, 1999 to June, 2001) Farm Sanctuary, October

2001. http://www.nodowners.org/downedanimals.pdf

[68] National Cattlemen's Beef Association news release. 21 May 2003.

http://www.beef.org/dsp/dsp_content.cfm?locationId=45 & contentTypeId=2 & contentId=\

2098

[69] United States General Accounting Office. GAO Report to

Congressional Requesters. January 2002 MAD COW DISEASE: Improvements

in the Animal Feed Ban and Other Regulatory Areas Would Strengthen

U.S. Prevention Efforts. GAO-02-183.

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d02183.pdf

[70] " Health and Consumer Groups Urge USDA to Keep Cattle Spinal Cord

Tissue Out of Processed Meat " Center for Science in the Public

Interest News Release. 10 August 2001.

[71] USDA, Food Safety and Inspection Service, USDA Begins Sampling

Program for Advanced Meat Recovery Systems, News Release.3 March 2002.

[72] United States General Accounting Office. GAO Report to

Congressional Requesters. January 2002 MAD COW DISEASE: Improvements

in the Animal Feed Ban and Other Regulatory Areas Would Strengthen

U.S. Prevention Efforts. GAO-02-183.

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d02183.pdf

[73] USDA Response To GAO Recommendations on BSE Prevention. Release

No. F.S. 0071.02.

[74] Garland et al. " Brain emboli in the lungs of cattle after

stunning " The Lancet 348(1996):610.

[75] Chicago Tribune 21 May 21 2003.

[76] Toronto Star 21 May 21 2003.

[77] Chicago Tribune 21 May 21 2003.

[78] " Ministers Hostile to Advice on BSE. " New Scientist 30 March 1996: 4.

[79] United States General Accounting Office. GAO Report to

Congressional Requesters. January 2002 MAD COW DISEASE: Improvements

in the Animal Feed Ban and Other Regulatory Areas Would Strengthen

U.S. Prevention Efforts. GAO-02-183.

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d02183.pdf

 

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[Guest guest]

It usually does!

 

Jo

 

> does this mean they'll be after our tofu and soy burgers??

> ~shahara

 

 

 

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[Guest guest]

I don't know--there are plenty of people who will put their heads in the

sand and continue to eat dead animals no matter what kinda crap they feed

them, not matter what diseases they have, etc. Our tofu and veggie burger

supply won't be stretched too far, which is a good thing. I have limited

freezer space.

 

Danielle

 

 

 

" This is your American dream

Everything is simple in the white and the black

You will never need to see the grey anymore

You will never have to be afraid. " --Everclear

 

 

 

 

 

----Original Message Follows----

" Heartwork " <Heartwork

 

 

Re: Canadian Mad Cow Crisis Puts American Beef Supply

at Risk

Fri, 23 May 2003 07:51:58 +0100

 

It usually does!

 

Jo

 

> does this mean they'll be after our tofu and soy burgers??

> ~shahara

 

 

 

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[Guest guest]

Hi Danielle

 

I think there will be enough soya - I just home we can still get non-gm

soya!

 

Jo

 

 

> I don't know--there are plenty of people who will put their heads in the

> sand and continue to eat dead animals no matter what kinda crap they feed

> them, not matter what diseases they have, etc. Our tofu and veggie burger

> supply won't be stretched too far, which is a good thing. I have limited

> freezer space.

 

 

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