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Mad Cow Disease now in the U.S.


alacarte

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J - Which side of the mountains do you live on?

East side.... I live in Nebraska, hence the signature.

I always attempt to have the ratio of my intelligence to weight ratio be greater than one. But, I am from the midwest. I am sure you can now understand my life's conundrum.

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Some perspective:

Finally, consider that in 2001 a study by our center at Harvard found that if mad cow disease occurred in the American cattle herd, the chance that it would spread to other animals or pose a threat to human health is extraordinarily low. This is because of the feed ban. Even with incomplete compliance, this ban keeps the disease from expanding through the herd, all but eliminating the chance that infected material will reach our tables. An isolated case, or several, is possible. But a large-scale threat to animals or humans is highly unlikely.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic...-2003Dec30.html

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The failure of government to govern is due, not to inherent defects in the fact of government, but to deeper defects in the human psyche. These manifest themselves even more clearly in unregulated commerce. If you want a model of what ungovered human behavior produces, take a look at internet spam and pornography. One capitalises [literally] on greed, the other on salacity.

John Whiting, London

Whitings Writings

Top Google/MSN hit for Paris Bistros

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The difference is that capitalism and the free market makes use of and benefits from human foibles, whereas government always suffers from them. There's a difference between a free market and anarchy. A free market requires government to enforce contracts, to prevent and punish fraud, to enforce civil litigation, etc.

Here's another somewhat out of date article that's nonetheless rather appropriate (skip past the irradition discussion for the appropriate part):

http://www.cato.org/research/articles/taylor-970921.html

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Here's another somewhat out of date article that's nonetheless rather appropriate (skip past the irradition discussion for the appropriate part):

http://www.cato.org/research/articles/taylor-970921.html

In a perfect world, the systems described in this article would work well. However, as much as I worry about government regulations, I do not trust a system where potential lawsuits can be calculated into the bottom line as a cost of doing business and profits can be more important than human safety.

If government regulations are not enough right now, think of the millions of dollars the cattle industry has spent in recent years trying to prevent additional regulations. That, in my opinion, shows they aren't about to do better than the government if allowed to regulate themselves. Here's a recent example:

The most aggressive of the USDA reforms would ban from the nation's food supply cattle that are too injured or too ill to walk. Congress has repeatedly considered a similar measure but it never became law because of opposition from lawmakers from Texas and other cattle states.

While I think this isn't much of a response from the USDA, I find it troubling that lawmakers (likely under the influence of lobbyists from the meat industry as well as meat producing constituents) have spent time trying to prevent the banning of cows too sick to walk from being slaughtered.

And if the meat industry cared, why not test every cow before slaughtering? The BSE test is a whopping $13, working out to about 2 cents per pound of beef. Many other countries test every cow before slaughter and have for years -- but there are probably government regulations behind the testing.

Tammy Olson aka "TPO"

The Practical Pantry

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The government can benefit by human foibles in several ways, but the most pertinent to eGullet is "sin taxing" of various addictive things including liquor.

Michael aka "Pan"

 

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Having re-read this post for the second time, here's my three cents on angry cow.

Where did it come from? Canada? The US? Who cares. It came, it saw, it's visting. If this means other countries don't take our beef, good, more for me. It's doubtful that the entire US herd will become infected. Especially since everyone is watching the Industry right now. It's time that meaningful steps be taken to curtail this issue. No more blame shifting. No more finger pointing. Fix the problem.

Who should be responsible for getting rid of it? The industry? The Government? How about the both of 'em. The Government sets a series of standards. at best Government standards are minimal. You know this. I know this. The Industry knows this. It is up the Industry to raise their standards.

If the Industry does not meet mimimum standards, occasionally they can be fined or reprimanded. It's not often this happens, the lawyers make sure of it. As long as the Industry meets mimimum standards, the Government leaves ‘em alone.

Your job works the same way, you can wear the miminum amount of flair. However, if you want to get anywhere you are going to have to exceed the minimum amount of flair. As long as you do your job, no one complains. Screw up, and everyone has to tell you about it.

Government regulations are not the answer to this problem. The answer has to come from the Industry. If the Industry does not have enough pride or faith in itself to wear more than the minimum amount of flair, then the Government can do nothing. You can not make people excel, they have to want to.

And riddle me this Batman- when PETA wants the living conditions of animals changed, who do they picket?

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I frankly don't know. Who?

PETA pickets the Industry. They go after McDonald's, Burger King, etc. Who in turn pressure their buyers, who pressue their sellors. Who in turn, if they want to keep that fact contract, change their system. The Government minimums remain in place, Frank's chicken farm is kinder to their chickens, PETA backs off. Everybody's happy.

The point I think I'm trying to make is that you have to go after the "results people", not the "action people". Government regulations produce actions, not results. The Industry produces results, which cause actions. You hammer the people that make it happen, and you can change it.

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Who's going to picket meat-packing plants, GS? And how does anyone know what's happening in them if they bar people from visiting their premises?

Michael aka "Pan"

 

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Who's going to picket meat-packing plants, GS? And how does anyone know what's happening in them if they bar people from visiting their premises?

They're always hiring. Just get a job there for a few days and you'll have more than enough access :smile:

I always attempt to have the ratio of my intelligence to weight ratio be greater than one. But, I am from the midwest. I am sure you can now understand my life's conundrum.

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I do not trust a system where potential lawsuits can be calculated into the bottom line as a cost of doing business and profits can be more important than human safety.

I don't trust a system where I can't make my own choices about risks I'm willing to take. If I want to eat blowfish, imported brie, sweetbreads, or a hamburger from McDonald's I want to be able to calculate my own risks. I don't want the government deciding what risks I should and shouldn't take, telling me skydiving, skiing, or surfing are too dangerous.

Food will never be perfectly safe or clean. There will always be a level, even if the government is in control, of acceptable contamination. It's that way with environmental policy and current food policy. At least the market has a real way of judging what is acceptable based on results. If companies have outbreaks of food-borne illnesses, they get a reputation, no one goes there, they're branded in the media, they go out of business, unless, like Jack in the Box and McD's did, they fix most of the problems (and actually make more effective regulation than the government).

I should add, we're given a false sense of security and become in the habit of abdicating our responsibility by looking to government to control this.

Edited by ExtraMSG (log)
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Food will never be perfectly safe or clean. There will always be a level, even if the government is in control, of acceptable contamination. It's that way with environmental policy and current food policy. At least the market has a real way of judging what is acceptable based on results. If companies have outbreaks of food-borne illnesses, they get a reputation, no one goes there, they're branded in the media, they go out of business, unless, like Jack in the Box and McD's did, they fix most of the problems (and actually make more effective regulation than the government).

True, nothing will ever be perfectly safe. But since it takes 20 years after eating infected meat for vCJD to show up in humans, it will be awfully hard to find the responsible party and put them out of business.

When possible solutions include a test that would cost producers 2 cents a pound, BSE seems like an unneccesary risk to me. To meat producers, it is an acceptable risk because of the cost of losing 550 pounds of product should the cow test positive.

That's when I think a third party -- whether the government or some other nonprofit entity -- could prove valuable.

Tammy Olson aka "TPO"

The Practical Pantry

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True, nothing will ever be perfectly safe. But since it takes 20 years after eating infected meat for vCJD to show up in humans, it will be awfully hard to find the responsible party and put them out of business.

Now that's just ridiculous. Suing a company isn't the only thing that affects its bottom-line. The discovery of a mad cow itself is enough to put a scare in people. (And btw, smoking takes 20 years or more to affect the user and yet companies like Phillip Morris have been held accountable for their fraudulent claims.)

Here's another interesting (to me) take on mad cow by a conservative publication (that I often disagree with):

http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=2725

Basically, it shows that more regulation isn't necessarily the answer, but rather actually enforcing the regulation already on the books (and, of course, clamping down on those damned Canadians). Personally, I think it just shows how inept the government is at controlling such things and that we as consumers need to take more responsibility for our risks.

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Suing a company isn't the only thing that affects its bottom-line. The discovery of a mad cow itself is enough to put a scare in people. (And btw, smoking takes 20 years or more to affect the user and yet companies like Phillip Morris have been held accountable for their fraudulent claims.)

That works because a smoker smoked the same brand for the entire time. How is someone going to establish which piece of meat caused the vCJD 20 years later and sue the responsible party?

Michael aka "Pan"

 

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That works because a smoker smoked the same brand for the entire time. How is someone going to establish which piece of meat caused the vCJD 20 years later and sue the responsible party?

Have you noticed how many of the large meat packers have been consolidating lately?

I always attempt to have the ratio of my intelligence to weight ratio be greater than one. But, I am from the midwest. I am sure you can now understand my life's conundrum.

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That works because a smoker smoked the same brand for the entire time. How is someone going to establish which piece of meat caused the vCJD 20 years later and sue the responsible party?

The same brand, sure, maybe, mostly. My mom has smoked forever and has gone through a frew brands. But the brand of cigarette is less analogous than the tobacco grower, I would think. But regardless, I imagine you could go after McD's or Kroger for distributing an unsafe product or whatever, but I'm no lawyer. Aren't e coli suits generally directed at the burger chain, not the producer of the hamburger? But that was just an aside anyway...

btw, here's a site that is attempting to counter the anti-beef, anti-meat political uses of the mad cow scare:

http://www.consumerfreedom.com/headline_de...EADLINE_ID=2291

I don't know if I feel comfortable with the argument that "no known cases of....have been contracted from...." That's not good science. Just because people don't generally eat deer brains doesn't mean they wouldn't get CJD from eating an infected deer brain, eg. But it's important to recognize the underlying goals of many who are using mad cow in the media and political arena.

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Does anyone have an update on this:

http://www.consumerfreedom.com/article_det...m?ARTICLE_ID=52

Their new research shows that mad cow disease in humans and in cows is caused by a type of bacteria which is widespread in contaminated water. If they're right, British junk science (and activist hysteria) triggered the most costly peacetime crisis in that nation's history. Oops.
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That works because a smoker smoked the same brand for the entire time. How is someone going to establish which piece of meat caused the vCJD 20 years later and sue the responsible party?

Have you noticed how many of the large meat packers have been consolidating lately?

To be honest, no. But the thing is, cigarettes are inherently a product that kills, a fact denied for a long time by all cigarette companies, though they knew it was true. Beef does not normally kill, but is nutritious food. So in order to sue someone, you'd have to prove who was responsible. I wouldn't think it would really matter for that purpose whether there are 10 meat packing companies or 3. I don't see any way to sue the beef industry as a whole, unless perhaps you could sue an association for lying or something. And frankly, I think that's a good thing, because there's no way that the entire beef industry would be guilty if someone gets vCJD.

Michael aka "Pan"

 

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This op-ed piece from today's NYT makes as much sense as any single news item I've seen:

As always, the goals of industrial agriculture create a perverse logic. Instead of adapting the agricultural system to suit the animal, we try to adapt the animal to suit the system in order to eke out every last efficiency. We may take it for granted that dairy cows will eventually be slaughtered. But strange as it sounds, it makes greater financial, ethical and social sense if we subscribe to the cows' notions of efficiency, which do not include living on concrete or eating anything but grass and grain, rather than to ours. The animals would be healthier, their milk would be better, and we would not have to worry quite so much about what was in our food.
Holstein Dairy Cows and the Inefficient Efficiencies of Modern Farming

John Whiting, London

Whitings Writings

Top Google/MSN hit for Paris Bistros

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This sounds like the points I've been making:

At some point Americans will begin to judge agriculture not by its intentions but by its unintended consequences.

Michael aka "Pan"

 

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Thanks for the corrected link, Pan. However, that's one of the worst op-ed pieces -- and poorly supported -- I've seen in a while in a major newspaper. Reminded me of the papers I had to wade through from freshman polisci students. It's all assertions and non-sequiturs.

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You might be able to help us by telling us which assertions you don't find credible. Is it hard to believe that milk and meat is safer when cows are left to roam pastures and not fed antibiotics and meat?

Besides, essays don't always have to be based on itemized scientific facts. I don't think that was the model the ancient Romans developed for the science and art of Rhetoric, and I see essays as a written-out form of Rhetoric. The idea of rhetoric to me is that you start with an opening premise and use various means to try to persuade your listeners (or, in this case, readers) of the truth of your assertions. Naturally, if you reject the opening premise, you are less likely to accept the truth of the supporting assertions.

Michael aka "Pan"

 

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