Mad Cow Disease now in the U.S.

[tryska]

i know. it's a strange conundrum. on the one hand, as i said, we wouldn't be here chatting over fiber from all over the world.

on the other hand, we also wouldn't have to worry about nuclear disasters, mercury in the seas..umm..mercy mercy me?

sorry didn't mean to sound like some 60s activist, but for all the good, we've also reaped quite a bit of not so good. and it seems like now - in order to keep the status quo, we have to keep taking more and more extreme measures and creating the latest in hi-tech workarounds, when a lot of times, if we just look to our roots, the answers are there.

Edited December 29, 2003 by tryska (log)

[bloviatrix]

For those of you addicted to beef, but nervous about eating it, there is an alternative. I found this today:

Kosher Beef Safe From Mad Cow

[Pan]

this an even scarier notion than cannabilistic cows. 

Why do you find genetically altered cows scary?

Law of unintended consequences!

[Pan]

Quotes from R. Washburn:

So you don't think civilization is a positive thing?

As Roger Attenborough said in the character of Gandhi in the movie Gandhi:

"That would be a good idea." [referring to Western civilization]

Seriously, "civilization" is a very general term, usually one given a positive value. I don't see a point in debating an abstraction.

Controlling and altering Nature is what Man is all about.

Survival is what every species is about. Some manipulations of nature may put us in danger, so a degree of caution is advisable.

[Pan]

For those of you addicted to beef, but nervous about eating it, there is an alternative. I found this today:

Kosher Beef Safe From Mad Cow

From the story, it sounds like kosher beef is much safer than treif beef, but not necessarily 100% safe.

[Pan]

USDA Stands by Mad Cow Detection System:

U.S. agriculture officials so far are standing by their detection system for mad cow disease, despite complaints from consumer groups that testing is inadequate.

Monday was the first regular business day since the Agriculture Department last week announced the nation's first case of mad cow disease in a Washington state dairy cow. Dr. Kenneth Petersen of USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service said no additional inspections had been ordered and meat from cows that were too sick or injured to stand or walk unassisted would continue to be allowed to be sold for human consumption, provided there was no evidence of neurological problems.

However, Petersen said, "The department is looking at what additional testing we need to do." Under consideration are increased testing and expansion of a ban on animal feed, officials said.[...]

My remarks: Seems to me they're being too blase and slow to act.

[John Whiting]

My remarks: Seems to me they're being too blase and slow to act.

As Tim Lang, Professor of Food Policy at City University [London] pointed out on the BBC Today programme, The US government statements thus far could have been taken straight from the file of British press releases at the beginning of Britain's last BSE outbreak.

[jeff29992001]

speaking of grass-fed beef.... there is a small info article in the

nytimes regarding brazilian and argentinian beef.

"Brazil already has the most beef cattle in the world, more than 170 million head, and now anticipates a big rise in exports in 2004. In the first 10 months of this year, Brazil earned $3.3 billion from exports of meat, more than a third of it from beef."

Brazil's main competitor, Argentina, has a $1billion market with its 50 million head of cattle, and Uruguay (where some kosher beef is sourced) coming in third with 10.5 million head.

the downsides: there's an import ban on brazilian beef due to hoof-and-mouth disease, and (the article doesn't mention this) some cattle farms directly/indirectly converting rainforests into grasslands.

[tryska]

considering my paranoia pre-BSE of factory farming and industrial meat, I've always operated on a

1. Free-range Organic

2. Organic

3. Kosher

rule when it came to meat-buying - i think I shall move Kosher to the top of my list. Actually - i've got a source for Kosher meat down here, so it's a good thing.

[Fat Guy]

The primary thing you'll accomplish by buying kosher beef -- in addition to assuring that your steaks won't taste particularly good -- is avoidance of downer animals. The cattle slaughtered for kosher beef are not typically raised on special, segregated farms. They are most often taken from the normal cattle supply, and are simply subject to special slaughter methods and additional processing steps. It seems clear, however, that a perfectly healthy-seeming animal can be infected with BSE. Those gazillion cattle with BSE in the UK were mostly not downer animals -- most of them would have been entirely eligible for kosher slaughter.

[tryska]

hmm...not according to the article that bloviatrix put up.

Both Alle Processing and Agri Processors (Rubashkin’s), leading purveyors of kosher beef, told Kosher Today that all US and imported cattle are young (18-24 months old) and in excellent condition, as opposed to the “downers” (unhealthy cows) used in the Washington case. Alle said that it does not “slaughter or purchase any cows or bulls in the US (Beef Cattle Only).” It also noted that it does not slaughter or purchase any cow meat, that no brain material enters their plant, spinal cords are removed, and that they continue to import all natural hormone free, grass fed Uruguayan beef. The Iowan based Agri said that it too uses the Uruguayan beef and that all of its US cattle come from local sources in the Midwest.

what's important to me, are that there are no hormones and antibiotics, and that they are processed in a separate plant.

and i don't think kosher beef tastes that bad. it's not the same as the grain-finished stuff - but the grain finished stuff also has lower concentrations of omega-3s and a higher fat content, so i can live with that.

actually i have been living with that for a while.

[Fat Guy]

I'd like to try to avoid having another thread get derailed and become a discussion of kashruth, so I'll drop this for now. We can start a new topic on this if there's enough interest for a separate discussion.

[R Washburn]

Seriously, "civilization" is a very general term, usually one given a positive value. I don't see a point in debating an abstraction.

Really. I think you mean "degree of civilization" might be a little abstract and debatable. Civilization (an organized group of people with division of labor etc.) is not an abstraction.

Is civilization positive? I think the most concrete measure would be life expectancy, which has increased something like 7-fold from Neolithic to modern times. Also all that free time given to us by the division of labor, has allowed us a chance to do more with our lives than simply fight to exist and reproduce.

Such things as being concerned with producing beautiful and great tasting food, rather than merely absorbing life sustaining calories.

Regarding the risk of getting Mad cow disease, The NYT reports that there were 150 suspected cases of BSE in humans in Britain vs. 200,000 cows with BSE. We have one cow. I am liking my chances with the US beef supply. Frankly, I am more worried abou getting "Teflon flu" from an overheated non-stick pan.

[Pan]

R, I think we'd better not get sidetracked into talking about things like the percentage of leisure time hunter-gatherers have (and presumably had prior to the Agricultural Revolution) vs. us "civilized" post-modern people.

As for life expectancy, a lot of that has to do with better nutrition in the last 100 years or so, which is on-topic for this site, but perhaps not really on-topic for this thread.

[fifi]

Our collective reaction to this one cow, which was apparantly born in Canada before the "cannibalism ban", would be amusing if it weren't so sad. What is it about us that seems to demand a zero risk existence? That has never been part of the human condition and will likely never be. Put yourself in a hermetically sealed bottle, go around in a state of anxiety, don't enjoy anything that might have some risk, if you want to, but that is not living really. (Oh, and given the number of people killed on golf courses by lightning, don't play golf, either. Then we wouldn't have to cover up perfectly good farm land with turf grass. But that is another rant. )

Oddly enough, just last night I was reading one of Robb Walsh's essays in Are You Really Going To Eat That?, Keep on Shuckin'. He doesn't discuss BSE but he does discuss attitudes toward risk. He is in a venerable "joint" just down the road from where I will build my house and he is there because he can get all the raw oysters he wants, anytime, and then he can enjoy a rare cheeseburger. What is pertinent here is his discussion of cultural differences and differences in attitudes toward food safety and risk between Europe and here.

"Americans shouldn't eat fromages au lait cru," an Alsatian wine maker once chided me when I bemoaned the fact that we can't get these lively raw milk cheeses in the States. He wasn't kidding: raw milk cheese that tests high for the dangerous Listeria monocytogenes bacteria is detected quite often in Europe, he explained. <snip> While efforts should be made to keep the food supply reasonably safe in Europe, some degree of uncertainty is considered a fact of life there, the Alsatian maintained. But if an American ever died from eating French cheese, the repercussions would be horrific. Americans should stick with antiseptic cheeses that come in plastic wrappers, he thought.

I don't want to get into a debate about cultural differences, or unpasteurized cheese. I think that this just illustrates that some other folks in the world seem to be a little closer to a realistic attitude toward food safety and relative risk. Given the statistics on BSE in cattle in the UK, their reaction to it was probably not all that extreme. Our reaction to ONE COW seems a little extreme.

Someone put out a book not long ago on the real statistical risks for things that happen to us and our irrational reactions to them. I can't remember the details. Maybe someone here has read it.

I gotta go get some steaks.

[Anna N]

...What is it about us that seems to demand a zero risk existence? That has never been part of the human condition and will likely never be....

I've been searching for a way to say exactly this! Thanks.

[Katherine]

While it's true that people tend to miscalculate risks greatly, I'm having a lot of trouble with the idea that BSE infectivity in the meat we have available to purchase is something that we should accept.

Someone who knows that there is risk involved in eating raw milk brie is taking a calculated risk.

A pregnant woman who consumes ice cream or queso fresco that was mixed with raw milk contaminated with Listeria in the factory; or a child who eats an e coli infected hamburger at a fast food joint; or someone who ate a salad with green onions that were contaminated with hepatitis--these people were not taking calculated risks. The food was contaminated, it should have been safe, and it killed them.

Too often the safety of the food supply in this country is based on the convenience and profit of the food industry, rather than the regs that we have in place. They cut corners because they know they probably won't get caught.

Would you really say to the mother of the boy who died from eating a Jack in the Box burger that she was expecting too much?

[fresco]

Someone put out a book not long ago on the real statistical risks for things that happen to us and our irrational reactions to them. I can't remember the details. Maybe someone here has read it.

This may be the book you mean:

http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/tg/detail...9304660-4487267

[tryska]

i'm not sure what the irrational reaction is?

no one here has decided to boycott beef (altho i think canadians certainly have the right too - on principals alone).

there's lots of slamming of current business practice, and i'm prolly the first in line, but heck i've been bashing factory farming for a long time. not just cuz of bse.

[fifi]

Someone put out a book not long ago on the real statistical risks for things that happen to us and our irrational reactions to them. I can't remember the details. Maybe someone here has read it.

This may be the book you mean:

http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/tg/detail...9304660-4487267

Hmm... I am not sure that is the one. The one I am talking about was aimed more at the "general reading audience", whatever that is. Whatever. Less technical.

[R Washburn]

While it's true that people tend to miscalculate risks greatly, I'm having a lot of trouble with the idea that BSE infectivity in the meat we have available to purchase is something that we should accept.

Someone who knows that there is risk involved in eating raw milk brie is taking a calculated risk.

A pregnant woman who consumes ice cream or queso fresco that was mixed with raw milk contaminated with Listeria in the factory; or a child who eats an e coli infected hamburger at a fast food joint; or someone who ate a salad with green onions that were contaminated with hepatitis--these people were not taking calculated risks. The food was contaminated, it should have been safe, and it killed them.

Too often the safety of the food supply in this country is based on the convenience and profit of the food industry, rather than the regs that we have in place. They cut corners because they know they probably won't get caught.

Would you really say to the mother of the boy who died from eating a Jack in the Box burger that she was expecting too much?

True, but BSE is not an example of sacrificing public health for industrial profit, and any aditional measures taken will not significantly make us safer.

The other examples you cited are much more serious health threats, and should be dealt with. OTOH many technophobes are more afraid of the best solutions then they are of the original problem.

R, I think we'd better not get sidetracked into talking about things like the percentage of leisure time hunter-gatherers have (and presumably had prior to the Agricultural Revolution) vs. us "civilized" post-modern people.

Only if you compare a hunter-gatherer living in a tropical paradise with a 21st century migrant laborer or sweatshop worker. T

[Mabelline]

I went to the ctv.ca site and read down the whole BSE timeline, but I could not get what I wanted. Maybe someone can help. What countries are still buying from Canada, folks? I read Russia and Mexico, but I don't know if that still stands.

[Pan]

R, I think we'd better not get sidetracked into talking about things like the percentage of leisure time hunter-gatherers have (and presumably had prior to the Agricultural Revolution) vs. us "civilized" post-modern people.

Only if you compare a hunter-gatherer living in a tropical paradise with a 21st century migrant laborer or sweatshop worker. T

I don't think you're right. But again, we'd better not get sidetracked onto this, which means, please, let's drop this off-topic tangent now.

I don't agree with your viewpoint, Fifi, in the sense that BSE is seemingly the result of feeding cow parts to cows, which I see as senseless, whereas eating raw milk cheese is the result of a process that does not seem senseless to me. Of course, that is a very subjective way of looking at things, but I'm suspicious of anyone who would claim to be truly objective.

Edited December 30, 2003 by Pan (log)

[fifi]

I don't agree with your viewpoint, Fifi, in the sense that BSE is seemingly the result of feeding cow parts to cows, which I see as senseless, whereas eating raw milk cheese is the result of a process that does not seem senseless to me. Of course, that is a very subjective way of looking at things, but I'm suspicious of anyone who would claim to be truly objective.

I'm not sure I understand your disagreement. Feeding cows to cows is really stupid. And, I would have thought so if I knew what was going on before we even knew about BSE. BSE is only one potential problem with this. With most species (there are exceptions) cannibalism is not the norm. Certainly among herbivores. Hmmm... there is probably a good reason for this. Mother Nature is pretty good at weeding out stupid practices. We should probably pay attention.

I was just looking at the issue from the standpoint of statistical risk versus our reaction to and perception of that risk. The enjoyment of raw milk cheese versus the low risk seems acceptable to me, and to a lot of other folks. If I had a compromised immune system or pregnant, I would probably give it a pass. Compare that to hysteria about one cow and people giving up steak seems unreasonable. Luckily, that doesn't seem to be happening, regardless of the news channels continually running the video of that one unfortumate cow. (A UK cow from way back, BTW.)

[Pan]

Yeah, I see that I'm one of the few people on eGullet who will admit to giving up beef for the time being (my parents seem set to give it up for an extended period, and perhaps for good).

There are risks that make sense and others that don't. 2001 was the year with the lowest number of fatalities per passenger mile flown in history to that point, including the suicide hijackings, but that didn't make much impact on people's attitudes because the suicide hijackings - especially to those who considered them preventable - were an unacceptable kind of risk, whereas a freak accident that people might have considered wholly unpredictable and unpreventable might well have been better tolerated by the flying (and potential flying) public.

If I take a risk of eating unpasteurized cheese that I know might but probably won't have a bad effect on me, I believe I'm taking a sensible risk. BSE, because it seems to be caused by something that's so stupid, seems so senseless that the reaction is not simply to the risk - which is definitely very low - but the senselessness of dying from it.

I don't know whether I'm expressing this very effectively, as it's hard to put my finger on it, and I've been awake for over 14 hours under the influence of narcotics (hydrocodone cough syrup).