Another Mad Cow in U.S.

[jayt90]

Yesterday's news reports tell of a second U.S. mad cow BSE) case, confirmed by U.S.D.A.

The animal was over seven years old, and was sent to a slaughterhouse for diseased or crippled animals, last November. The first report I heard yesterday (CBC-1) said it might be from Iowa, but a later report said Texas was the origin, unconfirmed. The carcass was incinerated. A quick test last November proved positive, and a more extensive test (histochem) proved negative, but inconclusive.

In January, a Consumers' Union scientist requested more thorough testing. USDA refused, until June, when the sample was sent to England, and came back positive.

On July 17, the case to re-open the border allowing Canadian beef to enter the U.S., continues, but the argument from ranchers that U.S. beef is safer, and free from BSE, no longer holds true.

[Daniel Rogov]

What's All The Fear About???????

I suppose I'm about to throw a bit of controversy into the Mad Cow (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy) issue by asking just what all of the noise and fear is about.

I can think of dozens of ways we can become ill and even die from eating bad eggs, drinking contaminated water or even inhaling the air of our cities. I can think of dozens more of diseases we can get from chickens, domestic or wild pork, venison, fish, etc. The mind boggles with thoughts of mercury, e-coli, radiation,

and a thousand other dangers. I can even think easily of the dangers of eating any meat that has been raised commercially! I can even supply a pretty hefty list of the poisons used in raising vegetables and fruits. Heck, I even know people who have been made ill by eating foods in Mexico, the Carribean, the Mediterranean, Australia, San Antonio and New York City.

As hard as I can think however, and with all of the research available, I find precisely two confirmed cases of cattle infected with Mad Cow Disease in the United States and only one case in the United States of a woman diagnosed as having Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, that being only possibly related to Mad Cow and most of the medical specialists in the USA concluding that she acquired the disease abroad.

I thus repeat my question: What is all the noise and fear about?

Edited June 25, 2005 by Daniel Rogov (log)

[srhcb]

That brings the total number of people killed by this to ...... none?

Not that it isn't a serious matter worthy of attention, but just to keep things in perspective, how many are killed every year by drunk drivers? And that's 100% preventable for $0!

SB (or, for that matter, how many are killed by lightning?)

[Pam R]

I thus repeat my question:  What is all the noise and fear about?

←

I think the issue is more about what finding the sick cows has meant to the economy. When the first cow was found and linked to a Canadian farm, the US closed the border to all Canadian cattle. This devastated many Canadian farmers. It had an impact on the towns the farmers lived in, meat processers, cattle buyers, etc.

If the US has found another sick cow that is traced to a State rather than a Province, it begs the question why not open the border?

[Daniel Rogov]

Pam, Hello...

We are in full agreement. But now (alas) we are talking agri-business, mega-dollars and politics, all of which I fear far more than the immediate threat of mad cow disease. And, as I posted on my own forum, "...if anyone thinks I'm going to stop eating T-bone steaks, tournedos, entrecote, hamburgers, boeuf a la mode, knockwurst, all beef hot dogs or Richard's favorite, carbonades à la Flamande, they are very, very sadly mistaken!"

Edited June 25, 2005 by Daniel Rogov (log)

[jayt90]

What's All The Fear About???????

I suppose I'm about to throw a bit of controversy into the Mad Cow (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy) issue by asking just what all of the noise and fear is about. 

I can think of dozens of ways we can become ill and even die from eating bad eggs, drinking contaminated water or even inhaling the air of our cities. I can think of dozens more of diseases we can get from chickens, domestic or wild pork, venison, fish, etc.  The mind boggles with thoughts of mercury, e-coli, radiation,

and a thousand other dangers.  I can even think easily of the dangers of eating any meat that has been raised commercially! I can even supply a pretty hefty list of the poisons used in raising vegetables and fruits. Heck, I even know people who have been made ill by eating foods in Mexico, the Carribean, the Mediterranean, Australia, San Antonio and New York City. 

As hard as I can think however, and with all of the research available, I find precisely two confirmed cases of cattle infected with Mad Cow Disease in the United States and only one case in the United States of a woman diagnosed as having Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, that being only possibly related to Mad Cow and most of the medical specialists in the USA concluding that she acquired the disease abroad. There is a fear of the unknown, here, in Canada and the U.S.  We would be better off if every bovine was tested at slaughter, as in Japan.

If you lived in the U.K., you might fear BSE. It can creep up on you, years after eating a hamburger cut from a steer that ate dried sheep remains. You would become very sick, and die a slow painful death, with no recourse.

I thus repeat my question:  What is all the noise and fear about?

←

[Daniel Rogov]

Jay, Hello...

The National Library of Medicine (UK) estimates that there were 121 variant Creutzfeldt- Jabok Disease related deaths in the UK between 1985 and 2002. Of those only 40 were definitively linked to Mad Cow Disease. More than this, the same and other sources point out that the number of such deaths between October and December 2003 were only two and none for the period August to December 2004. The sources also estimate that the number of future deaths from variant Creutzfelt-Jakob will be under 40.

Forgetting all other sources of possible infection, illness and death except salmonella, the Economic Research Service of the US Department of Agriculture report that salmonella infections are esponsible for 1.4 million annual illnesses, resulting in more than 16,000 hospitalizations and nearly 600 deaths in the United States alone.

I am not at all pooh-poohing the threat of Mad Cow Disease. I am indeed pooh-poohing the exaggerated fear that arises from two cows having been so infected.

[mizducky]

What's All The Fear About???????

I suppose I'm about to throw a bit of controversy into the Mad Cow (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy) issue by asking just what all of the noise and fear is about. 

I can think of dozens of ways we can become ill and even die from eating bad eggs, drinking contaminated water or even inhaling the air of our cities. I can think of dozens more of diseases we can get from chickens, domestic or wild pork, venison, fish, etc.  The mind boggles with thoughts of mercury, e-coli, radiation,

and a thousand other dangers.  I can even think easily of the dangers of eating any meat that has been raised commercially! I can even supply a pretty hefty list of the poisons used in raising vegetables and fruits. Heck, I even know people who have been made ill by eating foods in Mexico, the Carribean, the Mediterranean, Australia, San Antonio and New York City. 

As hard as I can think however, and with all of the research available, I find precisely two confirmed cases of cattle infected with Mad Cow Disease in the United States and only one case in the United States of a woman diagnosed as having Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, that being only possibly related to Mad Cow and most of the medical specialists in the USA concluding that she acquired the disease abroad.

I thus repeat my question:  What is all the noise and fear about?

←

Um ... because there's no cure whatsoever for BSE? Because our meat industry had a longstanding practice of the kinds of feeding-animal-products-to-animals practices conducive to passing the contagion along? Because a lot of Americans, like me, don't trust certain sectors of the US meat industry to have totally cleaned up those feed practices, and otherwise police themselves sufficiently to totally prevent an infiltration by BSE? Because this mistrust gets fueled by less-than-confidence-inspiring behaviors by the USDA such as that cited in the first post in this thread, in which they were refusing to re-test samples from this latest suspect critter until pressed to do so? Because I well remember the most recent E. coli outbreaks due to poorly-managed ground beef in fast-food burgers, which happened despite all the supposed safeguards within the meat industry--which safeguards are apparently still loopholed enough (despite the impetus of several people dying from the infection) that fast-food places are now required to cook burgers to death because they still can't trust the meat is 100% E. coli free? Because I therefore have bad feelings about a similar outbreak, only this time instead of the sometimes-deadly E. coli bug it'll be the always-deadly and incurable BSE bug? I'd say all these are ample reasons for fear and concern ... at least for me.

[Daniel Rogov]

Mz Ducky, Hello...

I can easily understand the lack of trust in governmental and agri-business agencies but again I have to ask - has there been any sign whatever that even a single human being has been impacted upon by mad cow disease contacted in the United States? And perhaps to point out that the vast majority of illnesses contacted via e coli are through drinking water.

Again, I am not poo-poohing the danger. I wonder though if we took all of the dangers into account if we would have to stop eating vegetables, fruits, grains, poultry, fish, and meat. All that would be left to us is mineral water that we have personally sterilized and put through super-fine filtration. Is there not a point where our fears reach a point of diminishing returns?

Edited June 26, 2005 by Daniel Rogov (log)

[mizducky]

Mz Ducky, Hello...

I can easily understand the lack of trust in governmental and agri-business agencies but again I have to ask - has there been any sign whatever that even a single human being has been impacted upon by mad cow disease contacted in the United States?  And perhaps to point out that the vast majority of illnesses contacted via e coli are through drinking water.

Again, I am not poo-poohing the danger.  I wonder though if we took all of the dangers into account if we would have to stop eating vegetables, fruits, grains, poultry, fish, and meat.  All that would be left to us is mineral water that we have personally sterilized and put through super-fine filtration.  Is there not a point where our fears reach a point of diminishing returns?

←

Well Daniel, I'm not suggesting that people just react to this kind of news by cowering in helpless fear of their food. Rather, I'm suggesting that they keep abreast of the news and make a stink about it, as I surmise was the original intent of this thread. Sadly, publicly expressed outrage seems to be the only thing that ever gets a sluggish and/or stonewalling bureaucracy to stay on top of this kind of problem.

Further, I'm *glad* this issue is getting media attention *before* anyone has actually died from BSE in the USA. Why does even one person have to die before it's considered a "real" problem?

Oh, and personally, I've never found any of the arguments about "relative risk" and "acceptable levels of risk" particularly mollifying from an ethical standpoint. To be perfectly blunt, I think of those arguments as ethically questionable rationalizations that industry and their too-cooperative regulators tell themselves and each other, so that they can ignore potential human harm costs for the sake of their almighty bottom line. Mind you, I'd consider it a whole 'nother ballgame if the problem in question were totally unprecedented and killed somebody totally out of the blue. But at this point in the very public history of BSE, this is most definitely no longer the case.

[Bux]

What's All The Fear About???????

. . . .

I thus repeat my question:  What is all the noise and fear about?

←

I think it's obvious, and in turn I ask what is the concern about our fear? Most of us fear sharks, enjoy the movie Jaws and have few qualms about going swimming in the ocean. We don't have to stop eating beef to show our dissatisfaction with the way our livestock is raised and the way our governmental agencies handle problems, but we all know that icebergs don't look very big from far away and above water. We understand that the little bit that shows is often representative of a much larger problem. All of the problems you cite are worthy of our attention. That we have so many problems doesn't call for us to stop becoming more informed about any of them. It should be just the opposite, in my opinion.

[srhcb]

I meant, of course, zero deaths in the US. The UK had a problem, which they dealt with at considerable expense. Of course, even the 40 deaths there pale in comparison to the number of Brits who succumbed to virtually any other manner of demise during the same time period, but so be it.

Say what you will about the governments and agribusinesses, but they've actually done a pretty good job the way they've handled this matter.

The New Yorker magazine had one of the first, and still one of the best, series of articles on this subject many years ago. If you want a well reasoned, non-inflamitory, factual account it's worth a trip to the library. (It wasn't available on- line the last time I checked)

SB (Yikes! I nearly just got hit by a meteor!)

[Pan]

[...]Oh, and personally, I've never found any of the arguments about "relative risk" and "acceptable levels of risk" particularly mollifying from an ethical standpoint. To be perfectly blunt, I think of those arguments as ethically questionable rationalizations that industry and their too-cooperative regulators tell themselves and each other, so that they can ignore potential human harm costs for the sake of their almighty bottom line. Mind you, I'd consider it a whole 'nother ballgame if the problem in question were totally unprecedented and killed somebody totally out of the blue. But at this point in the very public history of BSE, this is most definitely no longer the case.

←

I agree on this, but I also think that Daniel makes an important point, which is that when the press sensationalizes something that's a relatively minor cause of injury and death today, it diverts attention from much more important (as in numerous) but less sensationalized causes of death and injury, with the result that things that cause many more deaths and injuries get short shrift and thousands and thousands of preventable deaths occur every year if not every day. I'll note that the sensationalized causes of death don't have to be food-borne and don't have to be due to diseases or accidents, either, but even if we give non-food politics a wide berth (as we should in these forums) and restrict ourselves to food-borne illnesses and injuries in food processing, we can see how more research and better regulations on food handling and processing and workplace safety for meat packers and so forth could save a lot of lives. While I don't disagree with press attention on this frightening, incurable disease, it's a pretty inescapable conclusion that the media in the US (TV and radio even more than print) has a limited focus and attention span, so that one sensational story really is in that sense the enemy of other issues that might be focused on. And I think there are more important reasons than Mad Cow to support better and more inspections of meat packing plants and so forth, though if that fear were to be at long last the impetus behind some reforms, I'd be all for that.

[rancho_gordo]

Isn't part of the problem that this cow went down NINE months ago? Isn't it kind of naive to think there were only two? Isn't it completely avoidable?

Just asking!

[ingridsf]

One thing I've noticed here and in other discussions about pesticides, etc., is that the term "sensationalized" is often applied to negative reports. I think this shows a certain lack of understanding about the difficulty of bringing potential health risks to the public's attention.

Many of the environmental and human health orgs are grass-roots operations at a considerable disadvantage, budget-wise. We don't have the resources to work through industry lobbyists, PR firms, and ad agencies, outlets through which our target message could indeed be sent in a subtler manner.

No doubt the old phrase, "If it bleeds, it leads," is still true. But sometimes the "too awful to be true" tone is not the result of cheap sensationalism. In terms of MCD, the symptoms are dormant for years -- how do you fight an invisible risk that corporations the size of McD's are invested in denying? It reminds me of our utterly we needed activists -- loud, annoying ones like Act Up and Queer Nation -- to get it through our heads that HIV/AIDS was a public health emergency.

[Pan]

One thing I've noticed here and in other discussions about pesticides, etc., is that the term "sensationalized" is often applied to negative reports. I think this shows a certain lack of understanding about the difficulty of bringing potential health risks to the public's attention. 

Many of the environmental and human health orgs are grass-roots operations at a considerable disadvantage, budget-wise.  We don't have the resources to work through industry lobbyists, PR firms, and ad agencies, outlets through which our target message could indeed be sent in a subtler manner.

No doubt the old phrase, "If it bleeds, it leads," is still true.[...]

←

Exactly.

It's the media and not the low-budgeted grass-roots organizations which are responsible for blowing things out of proportion. It's not unreasonable for organizations to promote particular issues they are devoted to, and it's very good that there are organizations doing just that. If devoting themselves to narrow issues can make them effective in focusing attention on something that needs fixing, God bless 'em. But somewhere along the line, for the good of public policy, someone should be reminding everyone that there are many major causes of death that can be prevented, and doing something about those causes of death. For example, just think about how many lives could be saved if safety were improved on roads leading to and from shopping malls where people are buying beef, and in the vehicles they are using for the purpose, and if cleaner fuel were used in those vehicles. And I repeat: Disproportionate focus on a minor cause of death decreases focus on much more important causes of death.

[jayt90]

I agree on this, but I also think that Daniel makes an important point, which is that when the press sensationalizes something that's a relatively minor cause of injury and death today, it diverts attention from much more important (as in numerous) but less sensationalized causes of death and injury, with the result that things that cause many more deaths and injuries get short shrift and thousands and thousands of preventable deaths occur every year if not every day. I'll note that the sensationalized causes of death don't have to be food-borne and don't have to be due to diseases or accidents, either, but even if we give non-food politics a wide berth (as we should in these forums) and restrict ourselves to food-borne illnesses and injuries in food processing, we can see how more research and better regulations on food handling and processing and workplace safety for meat packers and so forth could save a lot of lives. While I don't disagree with press attention on this frightening, incurable disease, it's a pretty inescapable conclusion that the media in the US (TV and radio even more than print) has a limited focus and attention span, so that one sensational story really is in that sense the enemy of other issues that might be focused on. And I think there are more important reasons than Mad Cow to support better and more inspections of meat packing plants and so forth, though if that fear were to be at long last the impetus behind some reforms, I'd be all for that.

←

I started this thread after hearing (non sensationalised) reports on CBC radio. I felt I should report what I knew here because the U.S. media might miss it, or downplay it, and I suspect that has already happened, and the story is dead. Mad Cow (BSE) remains big news in Canada, as our beef is now restricted from many countries, such as Japan, Korea, and the U.S.

U.S. beef is now restricted from Japan and Korea.

I think we have collectively learned some things from this thread, and there will be more to come.

Edited June 28, 2005 by Bux (log)

[Pan]

You know, surprisingly, I think you're right. This time, I don't believe the story has gotten all that much attention in the US, though it certainly was a lead story on WCBS news radio. Then again, I seldom watch TV news here. How has the story been playing on CNN, network news, etc.?

[Genny]

This is the first I've seen the information, does that tell you anything? (My regular news is sourced online Google/MSNBC)

But, like Daniel, I'm not particularly worried. I don't eat at places like McDonalds/ BK, etc. in part because it tastes awful, but also because I know they don't get all their meat from the US (you really don't want to know!).

I agree, we need to stay vigilant and keep our meat supplies clean but I'll lose my sleep over other worries such as, "Will my husband make it safe on his hour long commute today?"

[fiftydollars]

Why did it take 9 months to confirm the find? The cow went down in November, at which time news reported a preliminary positive test, but it isn't until now that we hear it was confirmed. What happened during all that time?

Now I don't know much about cows, science, laboratories, etc., but does it really take 9 months to test a cow for BSE?

What about the supposed "gold standard" test that gave a false negative reading?

The whole thing is as suspicious as delayed poll results in a Third-world election.

[eje]

Why did it take 9 months to confirm the find? The cow went down in November, at which time news reported a preliminary positive test, but it isn't until now that we hear it was confirmed. What happened during all that time?

←

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n.../a104159D26.DTL

According to this article today, the agency blocked the third test, despite the conflicting results. It sounds like the only reason the third test got done at all, was it was ordered by the agency's internal watchdog, and the Ag Secretary didn't find out about it until it was already underway.

Not to mention, the article states the folks who did the second test in America did a second IHT test, and thought, "The tissue looked abnormal but, since the experimental method is not scientifically verified, the Ames lab did not report the result."

Confidence inspiring, all around.

-Erik

[jayt90]

The whole thing smells. Badly. I think we have to thank Consumers' Union for pressing U.S.D.A. to complete their tests. Intially, U.S.D.A. said the testing was experimental, and not reportable. Finally, the U.S.D.A. secretary admitted that early reporting would have been beneficial.

[Mabelline]

Do you really want the whole thing in a nutshell? The American processors -or prostitutes, as they are known by American Beef Raisers---made on average 400 to 600 more dollars by obtaining Canadian cattle, trucking them into the U.S., while not paying the fucking enormous taxes we do. Will we keep fighting opening the border...yep, pard. We have no BEEF against Canadians raising beef, but don't turn this into the return of Prohibition---liquor being produced in Canada for the explicit purpose of being smuggled into the States.

[Carsten]

Anybody really interested in good food will watch where they shop! and do not believe a word by the USDA...they lie, they cover up, they LIE BIG TIME!

edited because I can't spell english anymore..or french for that matter!

Edited June 28, 2005 by Carsten (log)

[Carsten]

Great book: SLAUGHTERHOUSE...Gail.A. Eisnitz....and yes I eat meat, poultry, veggies,fruit.....everything! I am just careful from where and/or whom I buy it..