3rd case of U.S. Mad Cow Disease

[Patrick S]

Thank you. I read the first two of these, and though they criticize the compliance testing programs, neither gives any evidence that compliance with the ruminant feed ban is not extremely high (i.e. neither gave examples of farms found to be using ruminant feed in violation of the ban --I'll check the last two). I'm not worried if the occasional bag of ruminant feed make it to cows, but it would be a cause for concern if this was happening on a large scale on a significant number of farms.

I don't have the book with me nor the time to summarize it for you, but I did find some things online for your perusal:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/155217_cowfeed03.html

http://tinyurl.com/nwezy

http://tinyurl.com/5owg9

http://tinyurl.com/mn2pg

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[jayt90]

Beef. It's What's For Dinner.

10-year-old cow entering the food supply? That just doesn't seem right...I have never heard of a cow that old going in for processing. Yuck.

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What do you think happens to thousands of 10 year old dairy cows when they dry up?

Ground beef, stew meat, convenience foods, and sausages.

[jayt90]

Just a question or two--

That would be three cows?

Out of how many?

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The pessimist in me says it's three cases that we know of...how many were not reported and quietly buried or ground into some homemade cattle feed?

There is an estimated 95 million head of cattle living in the US, and around 30 million slaughtered per year.  The FDA currently tests about 20,000 of those 30 million cows slaughtered.

I've seen estimates that the FDA has tested about 650,000 cows total.

edit - grammar.

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If my math is correct, that works out to be about .07 percent being tested, which is frightening small. What's the statistical minimum of tested animals needed to make testing a valid representation of the whole? Somehow I think it would be a lot more than 20,000 cattle.

Any SSB's in the room?

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The incidence of testing is very low in Canada and the U.S., compared to EU or Japan (where every slaughtered animal is tested). We could do better.

[eje]

Yes, but its the USDA, not the FDA. USDA/APHIS' BSE Enhanced Surveillance Program is testing about 30,000 cattle every month for BSE. Since June 2004, 652,697 cows have been tested.

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Sorry, wrong governmental agency and I think my numbers were previous to the enactment of the enhanced screening.

BSE Test Results

The number of tests currently seems to average around 8,000 tests a week.

Previous to 2004 the number was much smaller.

Surveillance: NVSL Bovine Brain Submissions FY 93–04 (through 4/30/04)

-Erik

[Darcie B]

Beef. It's What's For Dinner.

10-year-old cow entering the food supply? That just doesn't seem right...I have never heard of a cow that old going in for processing. Yuck.

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What do you think happens to thousands of 10 year old dairy cows when they dry up?

Ground beef, stew meat, convenience foods, and sausages.

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Gee, I always thought they went to a cow retirement home.

I did think that there was an age limit on cows being slaughtered for human consumption. Guess I was wrong.

Also, Holsteins (used by almost every dairy in the land) suck for eating, IMO. Really their milk sucks too but they sure do produce a lot of it!

Darcie (grew up on a small cattle farm....mmmmm, tasty polled Herefords...)

[Patrick S]

Just a question or two--

That would be three cows?

Out of how many?

←

The pessimist in me says it's three cases that we know of...how many were not reported and quietly buried or ground into some homemade cattle feed?

There is an estimated 95 million head of cattle living in the US, and around 30 million slaughtered per year.  The FDA currently tests about 20,000 of those 30 million cows slaughtered.

I've seen estimates that the FDA has tested about 650,000 cows total.

edit - grammar.

←

If my math is correct, that works out to be about .07 percent being tested, which is frightening small. What's the statistical minimum of tested animals needed to make testing a valid representation of the whole? Somehow I think it would be a lot more than 20,000 cattle.

Any SSB's in the room?

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The incidence of testing is very low in Canada and the U.S., compared to EU or Japan (where every slaughtered animal is tested). We could do better.

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Yes, of course we could do better. And in a world with unlimited resources, it would be an easy call. The thing is, we have limited resources available as it is (the federal government is already spending far more than they take in taxes). And when you consider that the BSE surveillance done so far indicates that the incidence of BSE in this country is infinitesimal, and that the safegaurds already in place will prevent the prevalence from being amplified (via feed), and since even now, almost ten years after the ruminant feed ban, we have yet to see even a single (!) domestic case of vCJD, I think it really is fair to ask whether or not the money we might spend on further BSE testing might not be better spent on some other food safety issue. Remember that, according to the CDC, conventional food poisoning causes 6 million illnesses, 325,000 hospitalizations, and 5,000 deaths every year. And in the UK, which is probably as close to the worst-case scenario as we'll ever see -- even at the height of the vCJD epidemic there, the death toll was something like 30 per year. 30 tragic deaths, for sure, but so are the 5000 that occur every year from salmonella, listeriosis, E. coli and so forth.

No one can or should dispute that BSE is a risk, that testing of the national herd on some level has to occur, that compliance with the feed ban has to be monitored, but there is plenty of room for discussion (I think) about how much to spend on a problem, and how much risk is acceptable. That's all I'm sayin'.

Edited March 15, 2006 by Patrick S (log)

[Blanche Davidian]

I horrified my mother-in-law when the first mad cow panic broke a couple of years ago by polishing off a hu-u-u-u-ge plate of spaghetti and meatballs at one of her favorite italian restaurants.

I second (and third) Patrick S on pretty much every point he made. I feel like the news media definitely exacerbates the fear people have about such things, blowing the fear in their minds out of proportion to the actual risks they bear.

[jayt90]

When Canadian beef was banned from export after the first BSE case (was it 2003?) many beef farmers wanted to test all their animals, at their expense, so that the Japanese market could re-open. (There was no hope for the U.S. market until BSE turned up there, and a political settlement was reached).

Those western Canadian cattle raisers were turned down, even laughed at, for wanting more testing, in the face of 'science' and the agriculture ministries.

In Canada the Federal government, as well as Alberta, takes in much more revenue than can be spent wisely. In Alberta, they give back several hundred dollars to each resident, every year.

I don't disagree with your argument, Pat., but there is a healthy distrust of bureaucrats here, and many of us hope we are not surprised ten years down the road.

[eje]

Meatpacker sues U.S. for right to do mad cow tests

Following layoffs earlier this year claimed to be related to lost business, "Meatpacker John Stewart has sued the U.S. government to provide it with cattle testing kits so his Kansas company can prove to customers, especially in mad cow-leery Japan, that its beef is safe."

[Jensen]

No one can or should dispute that BSE is a risk, that testing of the national herd on some level has to occur, that compliance with the feed ban has to be monitored, but there is plenty of room for discussion (I think) about how much to spend on a problem, and how much risk is acceptable. That's all I'm sayin'.

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This is even more interesting given an article that appeared on the BBC website today regarding the chances of contracting vCJD and the even smaller chances of developing symptoms of it. Apparently, there are signs that these chances are affected by human genetics:

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