Mad Cow Disease now in the U.S.

[JCardinal]

It's interesting that the US was quick to ban all beef imports from Canada and Europe following the finding of infected animals, devastating the agricultural economies of many countries. Now when there is a confirmed case in the US we hear, "Move along, nothing to see here. Carry on. We have everything under control. Nothing to worry about".

EXACTLY! Thank you for pointing that out.

It's exactly what I have been thinking reading through all these posts!

Despite that, Canada is not banning U.S. beef. (turn the other cheek I guess)

[JCardinal]

And it's true that very little US beef is going to Canada anymore, because when the US closed the border it sent Canadian beef prices down so far that nobody in Canada will pay the premium for US beef (save for a tiny handful of restaurants in the major Canadian cities that specialize in USDA Prime beef).

Um...I have to disagree with you here, in fact I think you've got it exactly backwards.

It's almost impossible to go into a large chain grocery store in Canada and buy Canadian beef. (at least here on the West coast of Canada anyway)

When we had our own mad cow incident here in Canada, I asked at the local grocery store why the beef prices were not lower and the butcher said that all the beef came from the U.S. anyway so there was no reason to lower the price or worry about the meat.

This frankly, angers me. I want my food to come from as close to where I live geographically as possible.

I have found only one grocery store that consistently sells Canadian beef (and good beef at that). Pricing is the exact same as for the U.S. beef, however the grade seems to be generally better and we often buy their ribeye's that melt in your mouth.

The discount or tiny grocery stores often sell Australian or New Zealand beef, the large ones U.S. beef.

Where all the Canadian beef is going is a bit of a mystery to me, but maybe we'll start to see some for a while.

We never saw dramatically lower prices as a result of BSE in Canada except for about a 4 day period when there was a huge influx of cheap ground beef from Alberta at most grocery stores, no other cuts went down in price and have not since (likely that they were from U.S. cattle anyway).

[fresco]

Some Toronto restaurants and butcher shops market their product as "Alberta beef". So maybe it is coming here.

Although I have bought whole fresh tenderloins and rib eyes and found labels identifying the meat as Australian.

A lot of Canadian beef is shipped to Japan and Korea, among other places. It's a big old global meat economy.

[Fat Guy]

I have to disagree with you here, in fact I think you've got it exactly backwards.

That's certainly possible. I don't remember how the amount of US beef purchased by Canada fits into the argument, so I won't drag it out unless it's relevant.

[fresco]

It's interesting that the US was quick to ban all beef imports from Canada and Europe following the finding of infected animals, devastating the agricultural economies of many countries.  Now when there is a confirmed case in the US we hear, "Move along, nothing to see here.  Carry on.  We have everything under control.  Nothing to worry about".

Despite that, Canada is not banning U.S. beef. (turn the other cheek I guess)

Not completely true. Canada has banned "certain processed products" but is allowing most US beef in.

http://canada.com/national/story.asp?id=52...81-2B795AE554F5

[Fat Guy]

That doesn't cull a downer cow before it's cut up and mixed with 40,000 quarter pounders pre-cheese.

There had never been a case of mad cow documented here. The testing and sampling was precautionary and statistically in line with what the best science was indicating would be a rational level of testing. Non-ambulatory animals do not necessarily have mad cow, in fact of all non-ambulatory animals ever tested in the US only this one had it. Even so, additional precautions were taken: when an animal who has been tested for BSE is slaughtered (even though there had never been a positive test in this country) only muscle cuts of meat, which do not contain BSE, are allowed into the food supply.

[Mabelline]

The scariest thing I've heard or read so far is the post that John Whiting made here. What he relates that Yorkshire Cattleman saying (can we call him a Yorkie?) is pretty much what the Cattlemen here at the auction have been saying. I have some cattle out by Shepherd, they were born here, bought here, and are being raised here. Am I concerned-yep- but I am just as concerned that right now we got a bad storm going through here that I keep getting alerts for. And it's guaranteed that would be what the fulltimers would say.

[Pan]

Guess what?

Investigators Trace Diseased Cow to Canada

By EMILY GERSEMA, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - The Holstein infected with mad cow disease in Washington state was imported into the United States from Canada about two years ago, federal investigators tentatively concluded Saturday. 

Dr. Ron DeHaven, chief veterinarian for the Agriculture Department, said Canadian officials have provided records that indicate the animal was one of a herd of 74 cattle that were shipped from Alberta, Canada, into this country in 2001 at Eastport, Idaho.[...]

He emphasized that just because the sick cow was a member of that herd, it does not mean that all 74 animals are infected.

[Pan]

There had never been a case of mad cow documented here. The testing and sampling was precautionary and statistically in line with what the best science was indicating would be a rational level of testing.

Steven, that strikes me as somewhat similar reasoning to defending the laughable airline security that allowed Al Qaeda hijackers onto planes, on the basis that hijackers had not yet successfully used an airplane as a missile. An attempt to crash an airliner into the Eiffel Tower had previously been foiled by French commandos and the CIA had known since 1996 that Al Qaeda had plans to use planes as missiles. With those warnings, the steps taken to deal with the threat in the case of Al Qaeda were proven grossly insufficient. Similarly, there has been plenty of warning that BSE was a threat, given that outbreaks have happened in many countries including Canada. We have to hope that the BSE was caught in time in the U.S., but if it was, it seems to me that it was due to luck more than good regulatory procedure.

Edited December 27, 2003 by Pan (log)

[John Whiting]

Only one of these three has been suspected to cause mad cow disease. That one -- feeding the remains of cows to other livestock -- has been illegal in the US since 1997.

But it's still perfectly legal by proxy. You can feed cow remains to chickens and then feed chicken remains back to cows. The prions seem to be happy with whatever host offers them hospitality.

EDIT: I note that jcsaucey has already mentioned this.

Edited December 27, 2003 by John Whiting (log)

[John Whiting]

found what I was looking for at the WHO site, the whole article is here:

http://www.who.int/emc-documents/tse/docs/whoemczoo973.html

CATEGORIES OF INFECTIVITY IN BOVINE TISSUES AND BODY FLUID

CATEGORY IV No detectable infectivity

. . .faeces, . . . saliva, . . . urine).

Well, that's a relief!

[Fat Guy]

There had never been a case of mad cow documented here. The testing and sampling was precautionary and statistically in line with what the best science was indicating would be a rational level of testing.

Steven, that strikes me as somewhat similar reasoning to defending the laughable airline security that allowed Al Qaeda hijackers onto planes, on the basis that hijackers had not yet successfully used an airplane as a missile. An attempt to crash an airliner into the Eiffel Tower had previously been foiled by French commandos and the CIA had known since 1996 that Al Qaeda had plans to use planes as missiles. With those warnings, the steps taken to deal with the threat in the case of Al Qaeda were proven grossly insufficient. Similarly, there has been plenty of warning that BSE was a threat, given that outbreaks have happened in many countries including Canada. We have to hope that the BSE was caught in time in the U.S., but if it was, it seems to me that it was due to luck more than good regulatory procedure.

I've never researched the question of our security measures pre-9/11, so I wouldn't know how bad our security measures were -- they certainly seem to have been inadequate. But the big difference in the two scenarios is the nature of the risk: if one set of armed terrorists gets onto an airplane, they will hijack the plane or kill all the people on the plane or otherwise carry essentially a 100% probability of doing something awful. If one cow with BSE gets into the food supply the overwhelming likelihood is that absolutely nothing will happen. The latest statistical information I've seen from the UK indicates that there were probably 1.9 million BSE-infected cattle in the UK, 1.6 million of which entered the food supply. (Discussion of UK BSE stats, from the BBC.) There were, possibly as a result of that (and possibly not), 143 cases of human nvCJD in the UK -- a number that seems to have hit its peak (no new cases have been reported lately, as far as I know). In other words, one human case of nvCJD per 11,189 BSE-infected cattle in the food supply. If consumption is limited to muscle cuts, the probability gets substantially more attenuated. There is also strong suspicion among plenty of researchers that some or all of the 143 human cases did not come from eating beef but, rather, came from blood transfusions or a variety of other sources. So when you compare the potential destruction from one successful terrorist infiltration to one successful BSE-infected cow infiltration, you're comparing two different species of risk -- so to speak.

[Pan]

Thanks. That response does put a different perspective on things.

I think I'm not alone in reacting partly emotionally to BSE because the symptoms are so horrible. Obviously, the Ebola virus is a much bigger threat because of the degree of mortality, but the symptoms that hit people with terminal cases of either one are horrifying.

[John Whiting]

However, especially if there is no evidence of human health costs associated with doing it, we have to ask what the costs and benefits are of increased regulation. . . .

If there is no statistically significant threat to human health from current practices, what do we gain by implementing new restrictions on feed, mandatory testing of every animal, etc.? We're talking about spending hundreds of millions of dollars of other people's money; I don't think we should be doing that unless we get something for it.

Animal welfare doesn't seem to be even a small factor in your equation. For instance, the BST hormonal treatment that mass-production dairy cows are routinely subjected to makes their lives a total misery. One doesn't have to be an animal rights freak to feel a strong revulsion at virtually universal practices which are, in effect, sadistic.

[fresco]

Even if you are being completely selfish about it, all the evidence points to well treated animals yielding tastier food.

[John Whiting]

I find it interesting that when my mother was a child (the early and mid 1930's) and was sent a few times each week to the butcher to buy ground beefe for the meatloaf, my grandmother ensured that she buy only beef that she watched them grind - she felt way back then that prepackaged ground beef was not to be trusted - you needed to pick your cut of chuck and watch the butcher grind it.

Of course, the factor not controlled in those days was what meat had been through the grinder just before yours.

[John Whiting]

Even if you are being completely selfish about it, all the evidence points to well treated animals yielding tastier food.

Amen!

[John Whiting]

Where all the Canadian beef is going is a bit of a mystery to me, but maybe we'll start to see some for a while.

As a beef connoisseur, I'm not in a class with Fat Guy, but to my naive palate, I've never eaten a better steak than the locally grown product I had at Caesar's in Calgary.

EDIT: No irony intended in my reference to Steven.

Edited December 27, 2003 by John Whiting (log)

[Fat Guy]

Animal welfare doesn't seem to be even a small factor in your equation.

Not in this equation, no. Which isn't to say I'm totally unconcerned with animal welfare.

[Mabelline]

John Whiting, I want you to know that I am going to read your work. I do wish you could find a way to get the essay you put up here into the mainstream. For people are so reactionary about these situations, not realizing it's been years in the making, now years in the undoing.

[fresco]

Wonder how long it will be until truly tasteless mad cow jokes sweep the US, as they did Canada?

[Pan]

Watch rec.humor.funny on USENET. I'll bet there's something up by next week.

[John Whiting]

Two recent news items are ominously relevant:

Six weeks ago, Dr. Prusiner, who won the 1997 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his work on prions, warned Ms. Veneman of the USDA that what happened in Canada was going to happen in the United States. Dr. Prusiner said, "I told her it was just a matter of time."

The department had been willfully blind to the threat, he said. The only reason mad cow disease had not been found here, he said, is that the department's animal inspection agency was testing too few animals. Once more cows are tested, he added, "we'll be able to understand the magnitude of our problem."

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/25/national...print&position=

UPI has been requesting documentation on BSE testing since July 10th and has been consistently fobbed off. Even after a threat of legal action under Freedom of Information laws, the USDA has not said if any records exist or if they will be sent to UPI.

http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20031223-103657-3424r

[Katherine]

The purpose of the current testing (and statistical sampling) program utilized in the US is to verify that there is no BSE in US herds. Clearly there was no plan of action to be followed were infected animals to be found.

There are many tests in development, but the development task has been much more difficult than manufacturers would have hoped. The gold standard is still the test that was performed on that downer, where a sample of brain tissue is examined visually under a microscope. Such a test can be done rather quickly after slaughter, so that the carcass can be utilized, if it passes, but since nobody thought that the result might be positive, the sample was sent off to a faraway lab for testing at a future date.

While it is true that whole muscle meat is probably safe, it is also true that this cow was not destined to be turned into roasts. It was ground into hamburger, which was mixed in the processing plant with the meat of many other animals.

Tests have shown that many samples of hamburger contain brain or other nerve tissue. There is no way of verifying whether this animal was safely contained, or it managed to contaminate the whole lot.

I'll be grinding my own hamburger, thank you.

[John Whiting]

My personal response to such dietary threats is conditioned by the ratio between my age and the period of incubation. And there are certain advantages to being past the age of reproduction. Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, we are told, takes years to reveal itself. Bring on the steak tartare. What other terrors are waiting in the wings? No matter; long before they shuffle onstage, I will have succumbed to the one ailment for which science, thank heavens, has yet to discover a remedy.

http://www.whitings-writings.com/essays/mad.htm